


of handbaskets and highways...

by Medie



Series: Nora-verse [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Challenge: SPN Big Bang, F/F, Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-07
Updated: 2010-03-07
Packaged: 2017-10-07 18:53:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I wanted better for you than this, Jo. Guess I just wasn't ready to admit this is your idea of better." Jo shook her head. "Not better, just mine."</p>
            </blockquote>





	of handbaskets and highways...

"Hi, Mom." Holding Nora's phone to her ear, Jo scrunched down in the bug's passenger seat and tried not to cringe.

She'd been avoiding this phone call from the moment she'd left the roadhouse, hoping the postcards she'd been sending home would be enough, even though she knew they wouldn't.

"Joanna Beth, just where the hell are you?!" Ellen demanded, though with less force than her daughter had been expecting. She could hear the dozen other questions her mother wanted to ask lurking in her voice but, mercifully, Ellen just waited.

"Uh," Jo glanced at Nora, who shrugged. "Right now? I'm on the interstate on the way to Louisiana. Me and a friend of mine are heading out there to check something out." The something being the dozens of hauntings showing up on the Gulf Coast. Hunters out that way had more than they could handle, according to Nora.

"A _friend_?" Ellen paused, suspicion in the silence and Jo felt the irrational urge to giggle. "Who? Sam and Dean?"

Oh, like she hadn't seen that one coming. "God no." Jo rolled her eyes at Nora then covered the phone with her hand. "She thinks I'm with Sam and Dean," she said in a stage whisper.

Nora snorted a laugh. "Don't tell me things like that when I'm _driving_!" she whispered back. "I'll die laughing and you'll get charged with vehicular manslaughter when I run a bunch of people over."

Jo stuck out her tongue and brought the phone back to her ear. "No, Mom, I'm not with Sam and Dean. Remember that whole thing where you taught me that murder is wrong?"

Ellen chuckled over the line. "Well, then, if you're not with those two – and I'm not complaining that you aren't – who _are_ you with?"

Jo opened her mouth to answer and blinked in surprise when the phone was neatly snatched out of her hand.

"She's with me, Ellen," Nora said simply. "Listen, we were hoping to swing by the roadhouse on the way, but that's only if you promise not to shoot me." She laughed after listening for a moment and Jo scowled suspiciously. "I have been on my best behavior, I promise. Haven't taught her a thing she didn't already know and, yes, she's _fine_. Yeah, when I see you, sure, no problem."

Jo would've given anything to know what _that_ was about but the chances of either woman telling her were nil. At least they wouldn't, unless she got creative about it, creative usually worked.

Taking the phone back, she gave Nora a look. "So, we'll see you soon, Mom?"

"You should have called me about Nora," Ellen scolded. Although there was no sting to her words.

"I _am_ calling you," Jo said. "I only met her a couple weeks ago, Mom, and we've been pretty busy. This is the first chance that I've really had to call you." She didn't mention Nora's ex, the 'Queen of the Damned', and her kiddies. She didn't think that was something that her mother really needed to know.

"Mmmhmmm."

God, she hated the Mom-voice. "I just wanted to tell you I was okay myself," she continued, not mentioning the fact she was calling was Nora's suggestion.

"Well, I'm glad you did, honey." Ellen's voice softened. "Call when you two get closer. I'll put something on the stove."

"Okay, Mom." Jo smiled a little and then closed the phone, demanding, "What the hell was that?"

Nora looked over with an expression of exaggerated innocence. "What was what?"

*

"Well, you look different," Ellen commented, closing the door behind her and taking up position in front of it.

Nora didn't miss the unspoken message but forced herself to relax. "Curlers, a little less make up, its working good for me. Goth girls with guns tend to get noticed and the last thing I want is noticed."

"Then you might want to consider t-shirts instead of tank tops."

Ouch. "Well, now, there's being noticed and then there's being _noticed_." Nora tilted her head and crossed her arms over her midsection. "I like that kind of noticed - it does wonders for my ego."

Ellen flashed a hint of a grin. "Seems that doesn't need a whole lot help."

"Well, it's never been all that unhealthy, true." Nora nodded. "But the odd shot in the arm doesn't hurt matters either." She smiled. "So, is this where you tie me down and start poking bamboo shoots under my fingernails until I fess up my intentions?"

"I was thinking a shotgun to your kneecaps actually." Ellen shrugged. "And you can't blame me for asking the question. It's my daughter, Nora."

"Who isn't a child, no matter how hard you wish she was," Nora responded calmly. "But, since you and mom were friends…" She shrugged and straightened. "My intentions toward Jo are purely to keep her alive as long as possible. The only time I've touched her has been in line with that wish – haven't even copped a feel."

For which, Nora thought, she deserved a medal. The signals Jo had been firing off weren't exactly subtle as to her intentions. Little girl was working on one hell of a crush.

Ellen squinted, suspiciously at her and Nora rolled her eyes. "_Seriously_, Ellen, I haven't. I can't say I haven't _looked_ – she's gorgeous – but I promise I haven't touched." She spread her hands. "Now, are you going to believe me or should I be going for my gun?"

In response to that, Ellen sighed. "I sound ridiculous, I know." Sitting down, the older woman gave her a look. "I never wanted her involved in this."

"Yeah, can't say Dad was exactly turning cartwheels when I got into it either." Nora nodded. "But she's in it now, Ellen. Truth is, she always was. You _really_ thought that girl could just go off to college and marry a stockbroker like she'd never seen a thing out of place in her life?"

Sitting on the edge of Ellen's desk, Nora crossed her legs and kicked a foot in the air. "People like us, raised like we are?" she continued.

"Doesn't matter what we look like, we belong in that world about as much as the things we hunt do." She smiled sarcastically. "Can't you see me now? Out there working as a stewardess or in some store? I'd make a _great_ secretary, don't you think? I could hex impatient callers."

Ellen chuckled and shook her head. "I wanted better for her than hunting. After losing her daddy the way I did, I couldn't handle the idea of losing her the same way. Convinced myself the best thing to do was get her in school and the hell out of here."

Nora nodded. "Dad tried the same thing."

"Didn't work for him either, I see." Ellen slanted a knowing look at her.

"God, no. I took the money for tuition, bought the bug and never looked back." Nora smiled. "We keep in touch, but he's still pretty pissed-off." Her smile faded with the memory. "It got pretty bad when I told him what I was doing." She shrugged. "He'll come around, sooner or later. This is always who I was going to be, no matter what he wanted."

"Which is your way of telling me it's the same thing for my little girl?" Ellen put her booted feet up on a chair and sized-up Nora with a sharp-eyed look. It was as good as a yellow light and Nora took the warning as it was intended and proceeded with caution.

"It's not something you can control," Nora added in a softer tone. "I tried, I did. Just like Jo tried. But fitting in out there?" She gave a bitter laugh. "All those girls worrying about frat boys slipping something in their drinks, and then there's me – sitting in my dorm room, wondering if it was werewolves or maybe a demon behind the missing girls in town." She paused, picking at a notepad sitting beside her on the desk. Stalling for time. "I look like a sorority sister, I know. But believe me, unless they're hunting demons on the sly… I was never cut out to be one. You can't unlearn this stuff. There's no stuffing the genie back in the bottle."

"No matter how much I want to," Ellen sighed. "You taking care of her?"

"Every step she takes; I know about it." Nora promised solemnly. "Anything happens to her, you can feel free to take it out of my hide."

Ellen smiled tightly. "Believe me girl, anything happens to my daughter, I won't need an invitation."

Nora winced and nodded. "Good to know."

*

Jo looked up from the jukebox to see an unsettled Nora step out of her mother's office. Slamming a quarter home, Jo gave the old machine a kick to start it up, then circled the tables to join her. "Mom give you the third degree?"

"First and second too – just because I'm special." Nora grinned. "Seriously, she just wanted to grill me a little. Make sure you're eating all your veggies and none of mine."

Jo shot a look at her. "What?"

"Nothing." Nora waved her off. "Make yourself useful and pour me something strong, hmm? After that, and driving across country with you, I think I've earned a good stiff drink."

"Whiner," Jo accused good-naturedly. She let herself behind the bar as Nora slid onto a stool. "What did Mom want to know?" she asked, ducking down to look for a bottle, while hoping her tone stayed somewhere near calm and even. There were a few things she could think of, and she wasn't sure she wanted Mom asking about _any_ of them.

"Oh, where we've been, what we've been doing, how much danger I've been recklessly putting you in." Nora grinned, folding her hands. "Actually, she just wanted to know how things have been going. Nothing too complicated."

"Liar." Jo thumped a bottle of whiskey onto the bar and splashed some in a glass, shoving it Nora's way. "Please tell me you don't play poker; we need money for gas and bullets."

Nora scowled at her and tossed back the drink. "Keep that up, kiddo, and you're walking."

"Fine by me. With your sense of direction you'll have to stop and ask me which way to go, anyway." Jo turned to get herself a cup of coffee.

"Get lost _one time_." Nora sighed.

"Three."

"Fine, get lost _three_ times…" Nora shrugged and sat back on the stool. She looked around, a thoughtful expression crossing over her face. "God, it's been years since I've been here." She smiled fondly. "Mom loved this place."

"Your mom came here?" Jo looked surprised. "I didn't know that."

"How do you think I found it?" Nora raised a brow.

"Hey!" Jo laughed, swatting her with the rag in her hand. "Be nice." She paused and shook her head. "Never mind, forgot who I was talking to." Jo leaned on the bar and grinned at her friend. "So, you used to come here with her?"

"Sometimes."

She frowned thoughtfully. "You were with her? I don't remember meeting you, before."

Nora smirked. "You were a kid then and I was way too cool and goth-like to be concerned with a snot-nosed kid. Amazing how puberty can change the landscape isn't it?" The last was said with a sly wink that made Jo blush. "You get to stay up past eight and see the strange people who skulk through the door. We usually dropped by late, depending on whatever it was Mom was hunting."

"I wish I'd known you then," Jo said honestly. "It would've been easier."

"Maybe," Nora said with a wistful smile. "Maybe it would've been harder."

"How?"

 

*

"Son of a bitch." Nora gaped in shock, looking up at Sam. "_Sammy_?" She swallowed heavily and stared at him. "What the hell happened to you?"

Sam grinned back at her and the picture brought Dean back to the image of his 'little' brother in his chubbier, more aggravating days. "Puberty, I think."

"Dad and I suspected black magic," Dean put in helpfully. "Sam here sold his soul to Satan for a few extra inches."

"Just as long as they went in the right spot," Nora returned, sharing a smirk with Sam.

"You know it," he chuckled before hugging her. "You look good, Nora."

"Believe me, Sam," she said when they parted. "I'm not exactly complaining about seeing you either." She tilted her head and grinned wickedly. "_Really_ not complaining."

Dean scowled. "Hey!"

Sam snickered. "Something wrong, Deano?"

Sam's use of the old nickname had Dean glaring balefully at Nora. "You _had_ to call me that."

She smiled helpfully. "Yup. I'm glad to see Sam remembers it."

"Been saving that one up long?" Sam asked her with a smirk.

"Oh, years now." Nora nodded. "It's a great way to pass the time when you're waiting on something. Sit with your feet up and think of ways to insult Dean Winchester. I've got a list a mile long by now, mostly I've moved into revision. Some of them are _genius_ ideas but, they just need a little tweaking."

Sam nodded in agreement. "We should sit down and share a few, my list needs work." He grinned, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "It really is good to see you again, Nora." He said, as they turned toward the bar.

"Speak for yourself, Sammy," Dean muttered from behind them. "You keep turning cartwheels of joy over there; some of us aren't quite so overjoyed."

"I see he hasn't changed a bit," Nora mused with a wink at Sam.

"Dean? Change?" Sam shook his head. "The devil'll hold a prayer meeting before that happens."

"So, is Ellen around?" Dean asked, looking at Nora.

"Arguing with some deliveryman out back," she explained. "I'm dreaming up a good alibi for us just in case she snaps and kills the jerk. So far, it involves Atlantic City, a stripper named Antonio, and a masseuse named Jenna who's _really_ talented with her fingers."

Sam snickered. "You sound like you'll be disappointed if Ellen doesn't kill the guy."

"You know, I just might," she agreed with a grin. "Ah well, I'm pretty sure Antonio's gay and Jenna's probably married. It's always the way." She shrugged. "So what brings you two here?"

"Sam's computer took a bit of a dirt nap," Dean put in, leaning against the bar. "Hopin' Ash can work a few miracles on it."

Nora saw the flicker of aggravation pass over Sam's features at his brother's words and gave him a knowing look. "Surfing porn sites?"

He grimaced and nodded. "Spyware, viruses; whole thing is completely screwed."

She chuckled. "_Dean_, c'mon, the motel stuff not doing it for you anymore?" He glared and she held up her hands. "Truce," she offered. "The roadhouse is supposed to be neutral ground and all that."

"Hunter's idea of Switzerland, huh?" he shot back at her.

"Something like that." Nora agreed. "I promised Ellen I'd behave and, well, do _you_ think it'd be a good idea to cross that woman? She's scary as hell when she wants to be."

Both Winchesters shuddered and nodded.

"You never said what you were doing here," Sam pointed out, sliding onto a barstool next to his brother. "Or what you're doing now." Folding his arms on the bar, he watched her] help herself to some pretzels. "Hunting?"

She nodded, once. "What else would a girl like me end up doing? I'd make a lousy yuppie." Shrugging, she leaned back against the bar. "If you grow up in this life; it's pretty much the only job you're comfortable with. Well, that and con artist." She smirked. "Which, of course, you two would know nothing about."

"Not a damn thing," Dean affirmed promptly, smirking as well.

Sam rolled his eyes at them. "Behave," he scolded. "So, are you here on business or something else?"

"Something else," Nora answered. "I was heading for the Gulf Coast – they've hit the mother lode of hauntings – and I thought I'd swing by and help a friend out." Her words took on a grim tone as she considered it. "With all the shit they've had out there lately, ghosts are coming out of the woodwork."

"The roadhouse isn't exactly on the way," Dean pointed out.

"Oh, it is if the circumstances are right." Nora smiled faintly. "And they were right."

Sam opened his mouth to ask why. When his eyes went to a point over her shoulder, she knew the question had been answered for him.

Both brothers straightened slightly but it was Dean who said the name, "Jo."

*

Nora looked cautiously from Jo, to the Winchesters, and back again. "Are we going to have a problem here?"

Jo stared evenly at the brothers for a long moment, daring them to look away first. It took everything she had to do it without shaking, but she did it. She wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of seeing her flinch, even if they weren't expecting her to do so. "No," she said finally, turning to face her friend. "Just a little bumpy the last time we met." She shrugged. "Awkward."

She looked meaningfully at Nora, who raised her eyebrows in acknowledgement and nodded. "Right, the whole psychobitch demon thing," she smirked and clapped Sam on the arm. "Don't worry about it, Sammy, happens to the best of us sooner or later."

Sam looked morose and mumbled, "Not all of us."

"Well true," Nora agreed. "No demon alive would possess your brother. Hell's bad enough, without them having to suffer through that too."

Barely holding back a snicker, Jo watched Dean scowl. "See your sunny disposition hasn't changed a bit, Nora," he groused and slumped into a seat at a table. Nudging out a chair for Sam with his foot, he looked up. "Always were such a sweet little peach of a girl."

"Well, I have to say I'm not normally so nice. I guess you just bring it out in me, Dean." Nora smiled sickly-sweet at him. "Why, you're just so damn hot, it's a wonder my panties aren't on fire."

"You know, Jo." Dean's gaze suddenly shifted to her and Jo wiped the smirk off her face, giving him a far too innocent look. "Going anywhere with this woman's just asking for it."

With a roll of her eyes, Jo helped herself to beers for everyone from behind the bar. "Oh, you're right, Dean, it really is," she agreed dryly. "I mean, look what I'm getting! A great shot, good company." _Someone who saw her as more than barmaid/nurse._ "And the connections are top notch." She waited until Dean had a mouthful of beer before innocently adding, "Plus, the sex is out of this world."

Pity Sam had taken that chair across from his brother and even more of a pity that he wasn't faster on his feet. If he hadn't sat there, if he'd been faster, then he wouldn't have ended up wearing that mouthful of beer.

Devilment in her gaze, Nora put her feet up and winked at Jo. "Damn it, girl. _I_ wanted to say that."

Jo grinned cheekily as both Winchesters sputtered, grabbing for napkins to clean up "You can't have all the good ones, Nora. Share and share alike, y'know."

"True," Nora mused.

"Plus, coming from you, they would have believed it."

That got a feigned pout. "Point taken," Nora acknowledged with a sigh. "Unfortunately, my reputation precedes me."

*

"I appreciate you calling, Nora, really I do, but I'm _fine_." Shouldering her kitchen door open, Maria shifted her grip on the grocery sacks before they could slip and nearly dropped her cell phone in the process. Grumbling out a curse, she tucked it closer to her neck and added, "I'm taking all my meds like a good little girl and the doctors are optimistic so, yes, _Mom_, I'm all right."

"Which is good to hear," her friend responded, static from the phone line crackling through the conversation. "So, you don't mind me dropping in?"

The uncharacteristic uncertainty in Nora's voice told Maria more than anything she could have possibly tried to say. "Have you picked up another stray, my friend?" she teased gently. "One that needs reading?"

"Maybe she does," Nora sighed. "I don't really –" She broke off, trying to find the words. "She grew up like I did, Maria. And you know what that does to you. There's a few things she needs to hear and I'm not the one to tell her."

Maria put down the bags on the kitchen table and rescued the phone from her shoulder. "Not from anyone living, you mean?" Pulling broccoli out of the bag with her free hand, she set it on the counter by the sink. "If she needs to see me so badly, bring her by any time."

"Are you sure that you're up to a reading?" Nora worried, making Maria chuckle.

"I'll never be too sick for a reading," she assured patiently. "Really. Nora, you wouldn't be asking me this if it weren't important and that's something I can't ignore. Bring her; I'll be ready when you do."

Sounding more energetic than she felt, Maria reached inward and felt the energy which had long defined her purpose stir to life. As she listened to Nora's response, it welled up and flowed through her to buoy her. Her goodbyes said, she flipped the cell phone shut and dropped it on the table.

With a light sigh, she closed her eyes and gave herself a moment to let it settle again. When she had, she went to the sink with the rest of the vegetables and hummed to herself, turning on the water to wash them.

She jumped at a sudden clatter, dropping the brush into the sink. A guilty meow told her the culprit and Maria turned to find her cat, Vala, sitting beside the garbage can with a chicken bone in her mouth.

"Little menace," she scolded, laughing. "You drop that before you choke on it." Leaving the vegetables in the sink, Maria went for the broom.

She never made it.

Vala hissed and bolted for the door seconds before her mistress' scream rent the air.

*

Jo was dragging a French fry through a large dollop of ketchup, when Nora sat down across from her and promptly stole one from her plate. "Did you talk to your friend?"

Nora nodded once, popping the fry into her mouth. "She's fine with us stopping by."

Jo watched Nora silently as she slouched in her chair and tracked someone's progress across the room. She didn't need to turn to know who Nora was watching. Reaching for the ketchup, she kept her voice low when she asked, "You really don't like them, do you?"

Nora laughed softly. "Oh, I like them fine," she assured. "Not half bad guys most of the time. Sure, Dean can be a real pain in the ass but I can be an unholy bitch when I want to be, so I can't really blame him."

"Then what's the problem?"

"I like them, I just don't trust them. At least, not with my life – or yours for that matter." Nora sat up and leaned forward. "I've had a few run ins with their father over the past few years. Just as fucked in the head as Daddy was. They're good men, like he was but, yeah – fucked in the head." She smiled slightly. "I trust Winchesters to be Winchesters. Which means I know when to watch our backs."

Jo gave a frustrated sigh and nodded. "Mom's said some of the same about John, and how my Dad died..." She bit her lip, unable to stop herself from hearing Sam's voice in that eerie singsong: _"My daddy shot your daddy in the heaaaddd..."_ in her mind. "She likes them but she thinks John could've saved Dad; that he was the reason Dad died in the first place."

She didn't miss the flicker that passed over Nora's face, though she couldn't identify it. It was like that sometimes, with her. Nora said and did things that didn't make any sense and she never ever explained herself. It was frustrating but Jo was learning not to ask. She didn't get any straight answers when she did anyway. "And it's not like I can really ask either one of them about Dad's death. Touchy subject."

"No one really knows, Jo," Nora began after a pause. "What goes on when hunters go out there, no one really knows. Not even other hunters. We have an _idea_ of how things go down but we can't be sure. I can't say whether or not John was responsible for what happened to your father or not. I won't try." She glanced toward the bar, where Jo's mother was watching them closely. "Honestly, all I can say is unless you call your Daddy up from the grave somehow, you're never going to get a straight answer. Your Mom can't tell you the truth anymore than I can."

A peculiar expression flickered across Nora's face, as she spoke. Jo didn't ask her about it, but she wondered what it was that made her uncomfortable." Not that it mattered, she decided, as she picked at her fries. It was just another part of things that she didn't understand. "I think there's a lot out there," she admitted with a sigh. "Stuff that I thought I already got." She laughed although there was nothing funny about it. "Turns out, I really didn't have a fucking clue."

Nora frowned as she listened and then, to Jo's surprise, laughed. "Is that all?" she said, stealing another fry. "Relax, kiddo, _none_ of us really have a clue about what we're doing. We're just more experienced with bullshit than you are. Believe me, you'll learn." Her expression softened, and yet, grew resolute. "I'll see to it."

Swallowing hastily, Jo stared at her in disbelief. She wasn't sure why it was so hard to believe but then she glanced over her shoulder at Sam and Dean and remembered. "I keep thinking," she began hesitantly, then frowned. "I just –" She sighed. "I keep thinking I'm going to wake up some morning and you're going to be gone."

That expectation had been a constant companion over the weeks they'd been traveling together and she had a feeling it would stay with her for a long time to come. If, that was, she didn't wake up to find out that it had come true.

"Why would I do that?" Nora shook her head at her. "Seriously, Jo, you're inexperienced but you're not stupid. You're willing to learn and you _listen_ to me. As long as you do that we're fine." She smiled. "Besides, I may bitch but you're not half bad to have around."

Which, for Nora, was as good a ringing endorsement as she was likely to give. It was certainly good enough for Jo. She smiled and nodded, feeling relieved. "Thanks Nora." She nudged the plate closer to her friend and grinned. "There's more where those came from you know."

"Yeah," Nora agreed with a smirk. "But yours taste better."

*

Knocking a ball into the corner pocket, Sam looked up from the table to his brother. "You know, you could just go sit at the next table. Probably eavesdrop better that way unless you're working on developing super-hearing and didn't tell me."

"Fuck off," Dean grumbled, chalking his cue.

"You keep staring at them like that and that's what they'll be saying to you," Sam smirked, sinking another ball. Hey, if Dean wanted to lose his money, he wasn't going to complain. Mock? Yes. Complain? Not a chance in hell. "Or maybe just shoot you." He added.

"They keep looking over here," Dean pointed out, moving out of Sam's way. "That means they're talking about us."

"Yeah, well, I can guarantee they're not talking about how great your ass is," Sam muttered. "Maybe Nora's filling Jo in on what a moron you can be." He grinned. "She's certainly got enough evidence."

He ducked in time to avoid Dean's hand as it came for his head. "Seriously, Dean, they're probably just wondering what the hell we're really doing here." He paused, swallowing hard. "Jo especially."

Dean shot him a look. "You're not going to go off the deep end with the guilt over the Meg thing again, are you?"

"Shouldn't I?" Sam straightened up and looked at him. "Dean, I remember enough to know what Meg almost did." He stole a glance Jo's way. "I'm still surprised one of them didn't shoot me when I walked in the door."

"Doubt Nora knows." Dean shrugged. "Jo's not likely to share that one."

"She told her some of it," Sam pointed out. "It stands to reason that she'd probably tell her the rest of it sooner or later."

"Yeah, well, hopefully by the time Jo feels like sharing we'll be the hell on our way." Dean pointed at the pool table. "You done cleaning me out or what?"

Looking at the balls, Sam leaned over to sink two more before missing the next shot. "Yeah, well, you've got a few bucks left and I'm feeling thirsty," he smirked. "Think there's probably a few more rounds in you."

Dean snorted. "Out of the way Sammy boy." He waved at him. "Time for me to save my honor here."

"Now there's a lost cause if I ever heard of one." Sam commented, leaning against the wall. Holding the cue loosely in his hands, he closed his eyes and refused to look the girls' way. He'd known from the beginning that coming here was a massive mistake, not with everything that had happened. It was all grainy images, bits and pieces of the whole, and he didn't know all of it but he knew enough. If he concentrated, he could feel Jo's arms under his hands and a shudder went through him. He probably deserved one of them taking a shot at him. As far as Sam was concerned, what had happened was as much his fault as it was Meg's.

"Knock it off, Sam," Dean warned from the table.

"What?" he asked innocently, opening his eyes.

"Guilt trip. Dive. Really deep shit." Dean frowned. "Don't go there, Sam. Seriously. What happened was _Meg's_ fault, not yours. There's no point beating yourself up for it. It's over, it's done, and you're both – well, you're both as good as you're gonna get." He paused and looked at the girls. "Don't know how good Jo'll be hanging around with Nora but that's her choice, not yours." He grinned at him. "Give it a rest, Sam, neither one of you needs one of your extra special guilt trips right now."

Sam exhaled heavily and shook his head. "Can't help it, Dean, you know that." When they were on the road it was easier to put it out of his head, make himself forget. It wasn't so easy to do when Jo was sitting across the room and Ellen was watching them all with a hint of a frown.

"Sam, I swear to god, you do something stupid like try and apologize. I will hurt you." Dean promised, giving the pool cue a meaningful poke his way.

His answer to that was an annoyed look and an abrupt gesture at the balls. "Just shoot already." As Dean bent over the table again, still giving Sam suspicious glances, Sam added, "I'm not going to walk over there and profess my undying remorse, Dean. I just wish I could apologize."

"And she probably wishes she could shoot one of us," Dean muttered. "Guess you're both out of luck."

*

"You kids have fun," Dean called out through the grimace he was passing off as a smile. "Geeks," he muttered to himself, stepping out into the hallway just in time to nearly run Ellen over. "Oh geez!" he yelped as she stumbled and he tripped awkwardly over his own feet.

Reacting, he grabbed for her as she tried to right herself. Instead of catching themselves, they ended up tumbling against the wall with Ellen pressing Dean into the chipped paint.

"Well, this isn't awkward in any way, is it?" Dean joked with a wry grin. "You okay?'

Ellen looked amused. "Nothing bruised but my dignity, you?"

He managed a shrug. "Oh, just peachy." He started to push her away, realized where his hands were going and thought better of it. "Uh, you mind?"

"Believe me, I don't." Amused, Ellen carefully extricated herself and stepped back. "You and Sam need a couple beds for the night?

"Wouldn't mind it." Dean glanced back at Ash's door. "Sam's a prima donna about having a _bed_. Me? Me and the car would be fine." Truth was, with Nora and Jo kicking around the roadhouse, sleeping in the Impala was as good as the Ritz.

Ellen grinned and nodded. "I'll see what I can scare up. Don't want poor Sam banging his knees."

"No," Nora agreed from the end of the hall, "wouldn't want that."

Well, shit. One look at the expression on her face and Dean was temped to grab Sam and make for the door.

"Need somethin', Nora?" Ellen asked, walking past her.

"The phone's for you," Nora jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "Jo's talking to them, must be an old friend or something." Her half-hearted attempt at a smile faded as soon as Ellen was around the corner.

"So, pistols at twenty paces?" Dean offered with a grin.

"Only if I get to shoot first."

"And how would that be fair?" he asked as she walked toward him.

"Wouldn't. I'm not worried about fair." Nora cast a glance at Ash's door and then looked at Dean. "Maybe we should talk out back."

Out back, with no witnesses. Fuck. "Look, Nora..." Dean frowned. "Whatever's up your skirt, save it, all right? It's not what you think."

"God, I hope not," she bit out. "Because what I think—" She smiled faintly. "Not exactly giving you the benefit of the doubt."

"Oh, is that all?" Dean shrugged it off. "You've never given me that, why start now?" Grabbing her by the arm, he dragged her out the back door and spun her to face him. "What the fuck is your problem?"

"Exactly what I was going to ask you!" she shot back. "You think I didn't notice? Jo was _fine_ – until you two showed up – and you two? It's a fucking miracle Ellen hasn't shoved a shotgun up your nose yet and asked what the hell is going on."

"She doesn't need to," he grumbled. "You're about to."

"Thought had crossed my mind." Folding her arms across her chest, she stared at him and Dean stared back. He wasn't going to make any excuses for what had happened and said as much. "Oh, I don't want excuses, Winchester, I want a fucking answer."

"You want an answer, huh?" Dean huffed a breath. "Fine, you want an answer, here's your goddamn answer. Sam got possessed, Jo got caught in the crossfire, and I got shot. Somewhere in there, Bobby and I got Sam back. I gave him hell for it. End of story – satisfied?"

"Not even close."

He threw his hands up. "Of _course_ not. Well, what else do you want? Jo told you everything!"

"Oh yeah," Nora rolled her eyes expressively. "We sat down, had a tea party, braided each other's hair and then she shared all about how Sammy the demon blew into town. I know a hunter in that area died. I'm willing to bet the demon killed him using Sam to do it. Question is; what the hell else did it do while it was in there?"

He caught the implication in her voice, loud and clear. "Not _that_."

She took a step forward, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Somehow, I don't think I can take your word on that one. What the fuck were you doing, Dean? Playing tiddlywinks while the demon screwed with that girl's head?" She tilted her own to one side, watching him closely. "Did you even bother to see if she was okay?" Laughing, she stepped back. "No, of course you didn't. It's not your style. Demons to slay, little brothers to save — the rest of the world can go to hell as far as you're concerned."

Dean's hands balled into fists. "It wasn't that simple, Nora. You weren't _there._ You didn't see what was happening. Meg had already used Sam to kill one person – she was going to kill more. I didn't have a whole lot of time to sit around and hold hands, all right?"

He turned away, slamming one fist into the wall of the roadhouse, making the old boards clatter. "She was _fine_. Hell, she was the one who patched me up." He turned again, thumping into the wall as he leaned against it. "She was fine, Nora. I left her in the bar and went after Meg."

"Please tell me you called her when you did?" Rubbing her forehead, Nora looked pained. "If only to make sure the demon didn't double back and go after her again? Come on, Dean, at least give me that one."

Dean flushed despite himself, he hadn't thought of that. Not that he'd been thinking a whole hell of a lot, other than saving Sam. Once he'd gotten a bead on Sam, his focus had pretty much narrowed down to finding him and getting Meg the fuck out of his little brother.

Which would be Nora's point of course, not that he was about to admit it.

Not that he needed to. She took one look at his expression and groaned. "Son of a bitch, _Dean_?! What the fuck where you – oh wait, never mind. You weren't. I forgot for a second there." She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. "You know, you're right. I wasn't there. I don't _really_ know but, y'know what? I don't care either."

"Good. " He turned for the door. "I take it that we're done and I can get some sleep now?" Not that he'd be getting a hell of a lot of it, but that was beside the point. He wanted to get the fuck away from her and the faster he went to bed, the faster they could get up and leave.

"Oh sure," Nora affirmed, her voice eerily light. "Just so you know, she's actually not that bad at it." She stopped in front of him, staring him down. "Hunting, I mean. Thank God she found somebody who gave a damn to show her how."

She let the door swing shut in his face and, for a moment, Dean was tempted to put his fist through it.

"Didn't listen to a thing I said," he told himself, annoyed. "Not a damn thing."

*

Blood was still roaring in Nora's ears when she sat at the bar and ordered a beer.

"You look mad enough to skin a cat," Ellen commented, putting the bottle in front of her. "Got any particular one in mind?"

Nora gave her ponytail a vicious yank, pulling her hair into place and then picked up the bottle. "Myself, for starters. God knows I could use it." She sure as hell deserved it after the fuck up with Dean. "Know any volunteers that're good with a knife?" She really had meant to _talk_ to him about it but somewhere along the line she'd gone from rational discussion to trying to verbally relieve him of his balls. Which, while satisfying as hell, hadn't accomplished a hell of a lot. In fact, she was pretty sure she'd make it worse. _Yay._ "Jo would enjoy it too much."

"Been riding her hard, huh?" Ellen paused and closed her eyes. "Let's just pretend I never said that one."

"Yeah, I'm good with pretending. " Nora grimaced. "And to answer that other question you asked; she's been pulling her weight." Which she had.

"You take her on jobs?"

"Well, she's not sitting in the car and counting the money we're not making, that's for damn sure, " Nora said, exasperated. "She's safe enough, Ellen. I'm looking after her."

Ellen didn't look convinced but willingly changed the topic anyway. "So, you and Dean fight like that often?" Her question was casual but Nora wasn't that clueless. She could be a moron when she wanted to be but, Nora'd met her 'being a moron' quota for the day.

"Only when we're breathing." She swallowed a mouthful of beer. "At least we didn't try to shoot each other – this time." Grinning again, she started picking at the bottle's label. "It's never been about sex with me and Dean." Nora was quite happy in her status as one of the few women alive who'd actually turned Dean down. There were bragging rights to be had there.

Ellen laughed. "Maybe it should be."

"Oh yeah, and maybe we wouldn't need demonic influence to try murdering each other the next time." Nora saluted her with the beer. "Dean and I'd make for one hell of a train wreck. Besides, with our luck it'd be the worst sex in the history of mankind and who wants to ruin a perfectly good possibility with cold, not-especially hard, fact?"

Resting an elbow on the bar, she gestured at Ellen with the bottle. "You're just doing your best to make sure I'm not molesting your baby girl. Give me _some_ credit, Ellen -- you're a better shot than I am."

"Yes I am," Ellen affirmed with a warning look. "And don't you forget it."

"Can't," Nora laughed ruefully. "You've saved my ass too many times." She avoided Dean's gaze as he passed the bar. "Speaking of, feel free to toss me out on it for that one." She grimaced. "Like I said; me and Dean..."

"Yeah, I get it. Two cats with their tails tied together." Ellen waved a dismissive hand at her. "He's better behaved when he's pissed off, don't worry about it." She smiled wickedly at her, reminding Nora of times long past. "You know men, can't think about two things at once. As long as he's thinking about breaking your neck, he's not dreaming up ways to be a pain in _mine_."

"So happy I could help with that." Nora made a face, not looking at Dean. The anger was still there, simmering beneath the surface, and she suspected Ellen would be pissed if she wasted a perfectly good bottle of beer on Dean Winchester's head. Understanding, but pissed.

"Glad to hear it. " Ellen nodded. "All things considered, me 'accidentally' locking you and Dean in a room --"

"Would lead to his homicide, definitely." Nora nodded firmly, grinning again when Ellen snickered. "What?"

"You sure you'd be the one doing the killing?"

Nora feigned disappointment. "Are you sure that I wouldn't be?"

*

"Okay, what happened?" There were days, dealing with his brother, that Sam felt like Captain Obvious or the Exposition Wonder. With Dean and his stubborn refusal to _talk_, what else was he supposed to do if they wanted to get anywhere?

And at the moment, they needed to get past whatever it was that had Dean stomping around the Roadhouse like Godzilla with a hangover, and Nora toying with one of Jo's knives. Sam figured Ellen would be just a little pissed off if they killed each other —blood being a bitch to try and clean up.

Resting his arms on the impala's roof, he grinned at his brother. "It seems I should've been the one warning _you_ about behaving." He waited, as Dean dug their bags out of the trunk before asking again, "What happened?"

Dean slammed the trunk shut and then ran an apologetic hand over the car. "Bitch is crazy," he grumbled. "Forgot that for a minute and she decided to remind me. Got something in her head and decided to try beating it into mine."

He didn't say what, but Sam knew. There weren't a whole lot of things that it could've been. "Nora knows what happened with Jo, doesn't she?" He frowned, taking his bag from Dean and letting it drop in the dirt.

Dean didn't answer, just leaned into the car to get his phone.

"_Dean_."

This was bad. This was very, very bad. Nora was a hunter and she was a pissed-off hunter. If she'd figured out what he'd almost done to Jo, she didn't need to know about the dead man, she already had enough justification to kill him, and Sam said as much.

Naturally, his brother immediately argued. Dean was prone to that. "She's not gonna come after you, Sam. Nora's crazy but she's not stupid; she knows it was a demon. She's not going to blame you for something a demon did." He grinned wryly. "Trust me, Sam. It's me she's pissed at."

"_You_?" Sam frowned. "What do you have to do with it?"

His brother shrugged. "Doesn't matter. She doesn't have a problem with you so relax." He waggled his eyebrows with a smirk. "I can handle Nora, one bullet should do it."

Sam laughed and shook his head. "And you say she's crazy." Dean's response was a gesture that had him rolling his eyes. "Just don't start another fight, okay? She gets busted for assault, she's _so_ giving your ass up to the cops."

"Hang on. " Dean stopped and looked at him. "_Who_ gets busted for assault? You sure you got that one right, Sammy? 'Cause, I don't think so."

"Yes, but I'm the smart one," Sam reminded, picking up his bag. "After all, I'm worried about my brother - who is technically wanted for murder a couple times over - getting busted by the cops. My brother? Is worried about who's tougher, him or a girl." He grinned. "And for the record? My money's on the girl."

The girl who, Sam had not forgotten, was justifiably pissed at him. "Face it, Dean," he advised. "Nora is scary."

"Oh she's scary all right," Dean affirmed. "Doesn't mean I can't take her in a fight."

"From what I remember," Sam scoffed, "she won't let you take her _anywhere_."

Dean grimaced. "Traitor." Grabbing his own bag, he shook his head. "How many times have I saved your ass and _this_ is how you repay me? Sammy, Sammy, you how can you do it?" He said with a disappointed look.

Sam gave it 'serious' contemplation for a moment before announcing, "Easy," with a wide smirk.

"Hey, you two coming inside or are you going Brokeback on us?" Jo called out from the doorway. "We're locking up. So, in or out?" She smirked as she asked the question and Sam was relieved to see it.

Dean looked at Sam. Sam grinned and held up his hands. "Not a chance, Dean, you're too much work."

"Hey!" Dean protested with a frown. "You trying to tell me that I'm not easy?!"

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it," Sam assured dryly. He turned to walk inside, leaving his brother behind with a confused look on his face.

"If you're wondering," Jo clarified to Dean as Sam slipped past her, "you totally just asked for that one."

*

Letting the door swing shut, Jo left Dean outside and hurried to catch up to Sam. The tension between his brother and Nora was unmistakable, as was the cause of it. "Sam? Do you have a second?"

He stopped, an uncertain look in his eyes. "Yeah." He nodded, clearing his throat. "I guess."

Jo bit her lip for a moment, then looked up at him. "I wanted to say this while I've still got the nerve." She sucked in a quick breath. "What happened? Not your fault." She shoved her hands into her jeans' pockets and tried to ignore the sharp twist of tension in her stomach. "Don't try to apologize, okay? There's no point. In fact, don't even mention it. Seriously. _Ever_."

She smiled quickly and then, not waiting for his answer, turned to go back to the door.

"Jo?"

Sam's hesitant voice stopped her and she looked back. "Yeah?"

"I am, you know." He gestured.

She rolled her eyes but smiled. "Yeah, I know."

*

"Nora?"

Jo's voice was soft in the dark and Nora smiled. "Yes, Jo, I'm awake."

"Oh good. " Jo sighed in relief then paused before asking, "What did you say to Dean?"

Stifling a laugh, Nora rolled onto her side and scratched her knee. "I told him he was a moron and kicked him in the shins. It was a good moment." It wasn't, obviously, but she wasn't about to tell Jo the truth. Lying here was the lesser evil.

The silence stretched into the darkness between them until, quietly, Jo responded, "Liar."

*

 

*

"You know, you and that computer have a completely unhealthy relationship."

Groggy, Dean rolled over to confirm the noise that had woken him was his brother typing. "Seriously unhealthy." Rubbing an eye, he squinted at the clock. "Shit, Sam, it's five-thirty in the morning. What the hell are you doing?" Sometimes he really despaired, at other times, he contemplated drugging him. That particular option was currently looking pretty damn good.

"Couldn't sleep," Sam explained perfunctorily. "Ash was finished, so I thought I'd give it a test drive and check out a couple leads. Nothing serious."

_Uh. Huh. _

How Sam and Dad had missed the obvious parallels, Dean couldn't figure. Apple falling from the tree, hitting him on the head, and all that.

Groaning, he propped his head on his hand and waved the other one at his brother. All five fingers. "Okay, what've you got?"

"Not much," Sam shrugged. "A few women murdered but, there's not a lot on the net about it. The police are holding back details, the FBI's involved and whoever's investigating shut down the press access." He shifted position on his cot which creaked in protest. "Must be something up our alley if the FBI's avoiding the press."

"No kidding. " Dean yawned. "We'll look into it when it isn't an ungodly hour of the morning." He dropped his head onto the pillow and pulled the blanket over his head. "Go to sleep before I shoot your ass. You know how I hate wasting perfectly good bullets."

Sam's response to that, was his pillow connecting with Dean's blanket-covered head.

"Thanks," he mumbled, pulling the pillow in with him. "And fine, stay up. Just type _quietly_ or I swear to god, I'm staging an intervention."

*

Jo woke up to the 'Ride of the Valkyries' and groaned. "God, _Nora_, change your fucking ring tone before I smash the damn phone." Grabbing her pillow, she jammed it down over her ears and pressed her face into the mattress. "Some of us are trying to _sleep_!"

Through the pillow, she heard the muffled sound of Nora's snickers before the phone mercifully quieted. "You know, you're just a ray of sunshine in the morning, cupcake. Anyone ever tell you that?"

Jo didn't get a chance to respond as Nora put the phone to her ear and started talking. It didn't sound like good news, so she sat up, pulling the blanket about her legs to ward off the morning chill. She stayed quiet, trying to listen to Nora's side of the conversation but it was typically cryptic and she didn't get much.

Standing up to walk a few steps away, apparently not even noticing the eternally cold floor despite her bare feet, Nora kept her voice low and her back turned. The action left Jo to wait and ponder the tattoo which peeked out from the strap of her tank-top.

Not that Jo didn't appreciate the view but, the longer Nora spoke and the quieter her voice got, the more worried Jo got.

"Something happen?" she asked when Nora hung up and turned to look at her. Judging by her pale face, Jo wasn't sure she wanted to know the truth. It wasn't a look she'd seen on her friend's face before and that was the scary part.

"Yeah," Nora sighed, dropping onto the bed with her. "Something happened and we're leaving." She paused. "Well, at least, I'm leaving. If you want to stay with your mother while I go and check this out, it's okay."

Jo rolled her eyes and poked at her with a foot. "Go _where_? How about you tell me what the hell happened, before you race off in your jammies." She smiled tentatively and poked again. "What happened?"

"That friend of mine we were going to go see?" Nora released a sigh, looking years older in a moment. "A neighbor found her dead this morning and it wasn't natural causes."

"Oh God." Jo paled. "I'm sorry." It was a lame thing to say but she didn't know what else she should say. It felt like she needed to say _something_, but her brain wouldn't supply the words. "I wish I knew what to say."

Nora smiled with sadness in her eyes. "I wish you did too."

She didn't know exactly why she did it but, with no words to offer, Jo did the next best thing she could and rested her head on Nora's shoulder. "When do we leave?" she asked quietly.

Nora leaned her head against Jo's and responded, "After you talk to your mother."

*

Ellen knew it the minute Jo stepped into the office. "You're leaving," she murmured, putting down her coffee cup. Her daughter nodded, looking uncertain. "Did something happen?"

Again Jo nodded. "A friend of Nora's died," she explained. "She was sick but it wasn't about that. Someone killed her."

That something had happened to take Nora (and her daughter) away didn't surprise Ellen in the least. It was the nature of the life. "And Nora's charging off to the fight?" Ellen asked, pleased that her voice remained calm, betraying none of her emotions. "Nora and you?"

"Yes. " Jo lifted her chin. "Nora and me," she said. "Even if it weren't a friend, I would still be going, but that's not the point here. The point is, you didn't see her this morning. If I let her go off by herself, I don't think she'll come back. She needs me."

Ellen smiled. "Yes, she does." She didn't like it, but she could see it in the two. "You understand that I'm not exactly going to be turnin' cartwheels over this." And she didn't, it wasn't going to settle well for a good long time. "I don't like you getting involved in this business, Jo, not one bit."

"No," Jo agreed. "I know you don't and you don't have to." She smiled slightly. "Just maybe try and understand it?"

"I'm working on that," Ellen said. "Trust me, I am, but it's not going to be an easy one to get through." Letting her daughter grow up and away from her? Nothing easy about that at all.

Jo looked visibly relieved as she confessed, "I did think I was going to get a fight when I came in here."

"And part of me wants nothing better than to give you one," Ellen chuckled. "Truth is, didn't do me a bit of good the last time, now did it? Made it worse. if anything." The months of silence and searches cast a long shadow and she wasn't willing to risk that again. "We made a mess of things last time and neither of us came out of it the winner. This time I want it to be different."

"I wanted it to be different then too." Jo sighed. "I tried with college, Mom. I did."

She looked defeated and Ellen echoed her daughter's sigh, recalling her conversation with Nora. "I know," she said, tired. "I wanted better for you than this, Jo. Guess I just wasn't ready to admit this is your idea of better."

Jo shook her head. "Not better, just mine."

 

*

"Dean..."

Sam's arrival down the stairs had all the subtlety of a rampaging elephant, which boded well for getting the hell out of the roadhouse. "You got something, I take it?" he asked, shoving the last of his toast into his mouth.

"Yeah. Those women?" Sam put the laptop on the table and pointed. "I can't get any good detail online but, no way you get a pattern like that accidentally." He stole a slice of bacon and shoved it into his mouth. "Straight line."

"That's not a whole lot with the subtle," Dean commented, smacking Sam's hand when it aimed for his plate again. "Get your own." He leaned over his plate, guarding it and surveying the map with an interested look. "Okay, so we jump a city ahead and see what we run into when we get there. Better chance of catching whoever, or whatever, this is in the act."

He glanced up as Nora came into the room, shouldering her bag. She flipped him off with a bright smile and stole his coffee on the way past.

"Bitch," he muttered.

"Dickwad," she called back.

"You know," Sam mused in that tone that Dean hated, "if you two were in kindergarten –"

"I'd shove her face in the dirt and make her eat worms?" Dean finished with a satisfied grin. "God, now that would be some sweet childhood memories." He pushed away from the table and closed the laptop. "I'll get our gear; you go make the goodbyes with Ellen. _Don't_ give her any details." He frowned. "We don't want her letting something slip to Nora or Jo."

"Like she would," Sam pointed out. "She wants to keep Jo _away_ from hunting, remember?"

"Not entirely sure about that one anymore," Dean mused, nodding at Jo and Ellen as they emerged from the office. "Nora's crazy, but she's good. Ellen's probably not going to put up that big a fight if it means Nora sees to it Jo stays in touch."

"You think she will?"

"They're here, aren't they?"

Sam shrugged at him, acknowledging the point.

"I'll let you know if I find out anything you two can use," Ellen was saying as they neared. "I won't say be careful –"

Jo smiled, no anger in the action. "And I'll try," she promised.

"Are you and Nora going somewhere, Jo?" Sam asked, standing up to meet them.

His question was answered with a nod from Jo. "There's an emergency with a friend of Nora's and she needs to go." She shrugged. "It's _not_ good, so I'm going with her. She shouldn't be alone for this."

Even considering the circumstances, it still took a monumental effort for Dean to keep himself from making the obvious joke. Nora Scott had _friends_?

One of the pitfalls of having Miss Cleo as a baby brother, was the annoying knack Sam had for moments like this, when the big dork sent covert warning looks at Dean for whatever sin he'd committed that particular day. It was damned annoying and Dean smiled innocently in return. False sincerity was _so_ his thing after all and seeing through it was so Sam's.

"Nothing too dangerous, I hope," he said, ignoring Sam's ceiling-ward 'Please God, strike him dead' look.

Jo's dirty look was only slightly less irritated than Sam's. "No more than usual," she said tightly. "We'll be fine." Tilting her head, she looked them over. "And where are you guys going? A job?"

Dean and Sam shared a look but Dean answered. All things considered, he was the better liar. Sammy and his emo-eyes gave away the game every time. "Sam, the insomniac-computer-freak, found something online might be worth checking out. Either that, or a guy with a serious need to give up the cheap crack." He grinned. "In short, we're climbing the walls."

"Nothing too dangerous, I hope." Jo smiled angelically. "Wouldn't want you guys getting killed because you were bored."

"Oh no, no." Dean waved a hand, grinding his teeth through his own smile. "Not a bit. Like I said, it's probably just some stoner guy with a good imagination."

"Hopefully." She nodded. "Nora and me, we won't be able to ride to the rescue to save your asses when you get Sam into trouble." Jo shared a quick smirk with Sam.

_Huh. When had _they_ kissed and made up?_ Nora wondered.

Dean scowled. "Other way around, sw--" He glanced cautiously at Ellen, thought better of the 'endearment' and continued, "Trust me, in this family, Sam sets whole new records when it comes to ass endangering. I can't even get close to his skill."

Ellen chuckled, saying, "From what I hear, you're underestimating your own skills there, Dean."

"Maybe," Dean allowed, "but really, I'm just an amateur. Sam? Sam's totally gone pro." He laughed when Sam made a face and gave him a shove in the direction of the door. "Sorry," he apologized flippantly, "he gets sensitive when I mention his tendency toward being a gangly damsel in distress. It's a touchy subject."

*

"You and Sam seemed a lot cozier before we left," said Nora, breaking the silence that had hung over the bug since leaving the roadhouse. Glancing away from the road for a moment, she looked at Jo with a slightly amused grin. "Just how much groveling did you make him do?"

Glancing up from the laptop she was balancing on her legs, Jo returned the grin. "None, actually. He was possessed, so not his fault." She shrugged and turned her eyes back to the screen. "He kept giving me those looks: the pathetic little puppy dog eyes. It was getting annoying."

Jo didn't miss the barely audible snort of disbelief from Nora and catching the disbelief in her eyes, she admitted, "Okay, I felt sorry for him. He just looked so _pitiful_." Not to mention with the tension over the whole demon possession thing out of the way, she could actually breathe around Sam and Dean now. There was no waiting for the other shoe to drop with an awkward apology or fumbled attempt to _deal_ with what had happened. It was done, gone, and she wanted it that way.

"Yeah," Nora agreed with a speculative tone in her voice that drew Jo's interest. "Sam seems a lot more angst-ridden than I remember him being."

"The last time you saw him he was _twelve_," Jo reminded.

"My point exactly!" Nora slowed for a turn and raised her brows. "Come on, I know our childhoods were seriously fucked up, and that leads to a boatload of angst on it's own, but even normal kids are usually little pre-pubescent whack-jobs by that age."

"Sam's good at faking it," Jo pointed out. "Look how long he lasted at Stanford. He wants to be normal so bad, he fooled everyone including himself." She smiled sadly, adding, "He's _still_ fooling himself."

"Self-deception is a Winchester family tradition," Nora explained. "Every single one of them that I've met? Damn good at it, very damn good at it. If they want to convince themselves of something, they will, and you don't ever try and get in the way of it."

"How well did you know their dad?" Jo yawned, feeling her jaw crack in protest. She needed to grab a nap before it was her turn to drive but she didn't want to stop the conversation. "I mean, I know you knew him growing up, but --"

"Did I know John in the professional, hunting sense of the word?" Nora shrugged. "We bumped into each other a few times." She smiled. "Should've seen the look of shock on his face the first time. You know how it is; he thought I was still a teenager and then I turn up all finished with puberty and not exactly hideous expecting to be taken seriously as a hunter? You probably could have knocked the man over with a feather. Casper could've beaten his ass that day."

The smug edge on her words made Jo laugh with relief. That sounded more like the Nora she was coming to know and tolerate and less like the silent, subdued stranger that'd gotten into the bug back at the roadhouse. "Did he take you seriously? As a hunter, I mean."

"God no," Nora laughed out. "He tried to put me on a bus back home and if I'd been just a little slower, he probably would've succeeded. As it was, I think I'm lucky he didn't break my neck when I kicked him."

Jo's mouth formed an 'o' of shock. "You _didn't_?!"

Nora winced guiltily. "I did." Jo watched her shake her head and sigh. "I paid for it, trust me. I think he was halfway to trying to put me over his knee. It took some fast talking to get me out of that one, I can promise you."

Laughing, Jo tried to picture it and just ended up sitting back. "You're insane, Nora."

"Well, yeah," Nora scoffed. "Like anyone who wasn't crazy would do this job."

*

The silence of the aftermath was the best part of all.

Standing in the silence, the power flowed free with the blood that spilled and nothing else dared move.

Not much could move. The body lay sprawled out where it had fallen, arms and legs akimbo, in a pool of her own blood. The coppery stench filled the room, making the air heavy with the scent of death.

The girl had died messy, fighting and scratching as she had been murdered. A complication but not an unwelcome one. The thrill of it still hummed over her killer, skin buzzing with the power of the execution.

As a precaution, the living room curtains were drawn shut before killer knelt beside victim to stretch hands across the body and the blood. There was a moment in which composure was gathered and focus turned inward and then chanting began to fill the room.

Flames followed.

*

"Oh god," Sam murmured quietly, staring at the autopsy pictures.

"Yeah," Dean nodded grimly. "Not pretty." He leaned back in his chair, and shoved another photograph Sam's way. "Some people? They're saying spontaneous combustion. But the cops think it's some kind of arson case; maybe somebody covering a robbery and murder with a fire. Fire's a pretty decent way to cover your ass. What evidence the fire doesn't get, the firemen putting it out will."

"But…" Sam took the picture and looked at it, glancing his brother's way to see what he was going to say.

Dean pointed. "Check out the arm, or what's left of the arm anyway. You see what I see?"

Sam frowned and turned the picture for a better look. "Knife marks?"

"A pattern of knife marks." Dean pointed, and with that Sam could see what he meant. "That look like a ritualistic thing to you?"

"Yeah." Sam nodded. "Yeah, I think it does." He frowned in frustration. "The pictures aren't good enough, we need to go back there and look. The chances of getting near the body…"

"Going to take some doing," his brother agreed. "But the crime scene, now that should be a little easier to swing."

"We're not going in as clean up again." Sam made a face.

"We are." Dean looked smug. "Know a guy in the area, hunter friend – if you can call 'em that – of Dad's. He runs a clean up business, great way to get into these crime scenes and take a look around. Plus, its a few bucks we can use. Can't argue with cold hard cash now, can we, Sammy?"

Sam looked down at the picture. "We can try," he complained. "I _hate_ clean up."

"Yeah, I remember," Dean smirked, tempting Sam to throw something at him. "Could never get you to clean up your room either."

Sam snorted. "Not when it was _your_ mess."

*

The body was long gone, but the smell of blood remained, lingering with the scent of smoke and decay. All of it blended into an acrid scent that burned her nostrils and made Jo's stomach lurch in protest as soon as the door closed behind them, cutting off the fresh air.

It smelled like death but, understandably, she didn't say so.

"Open a window," Nora instructed quietly, her voice uneven. "Make sure you breathe through your mouth."

Jo didn't move immediately, instead she stayed frozen in place, watching her friend carefully. She almost asked Nora if she was all right, then stopped, shaking her head at her own stupidity. Of _course_ Nora wasn't all right. They were standing in the room where an old friend had been murdered then burned.

"Open the window, Jo," Nora said again. "We won't get anything done until you do." Moving woodenly, Jo finally did as she was told and Nora kept speaking. "Firemen made a fucking mess of things, they always do." She sighed. "It's their job to put out the fire, but it makes things a bitch to investigate afterward. What evidence the fire and the water don't destroy, the firemen ruin when they toss the place."

"Think you can get something out of it anyway?" Jo asked, coming to stand behind Nora and watching her look over the room.

"No idea."

"You need a minute?" Jo wondered, hesitantly resting a hand on her shoulder and feeling the tension that was coiled just beneath Nora's skin. "You -- "

"I'll be fine," Nora assured shortly.

"Like hell you will," Jo shot back. "You're not supposed to be fine, Nora. She's _dead_." Beneath her hand, she felt Nora flinch. "You're not Superwoman, you can let yourself be upset if you want. You're _supposed_ to be upset, whether you want to be or not!"

Watching where she stepped, Jo moved out to stand in front of Nora, poking her in the shoulder. "Grieve now. Kill the son-of-a-bitch that did this later - got it?"

That said, she fell silent and watched the expression on Nora's face, looking for any hint of what was going on behind her stoic gaze. God, she was insane for yelling at her, she really was. Nora could toss her out on her ass, leave her stranded, and take off for God only knew where but --

Nora smiled faintly and nodded. "Got it."

"Good," Jo said, not hiding her sigh of relief. "We're too far from home for me to hitch back."

That got a snicker. "Your mother'd shoot me if I let you." Nora reached out to squeeze Jo's hand. "Besides, you know how long it's been since someone read _me_ the riot act?"

Jo squeezed back and grinned. "The last time you got in a fight with Dean?"

Nora snorted. "Sorry, that doesn't count. Dean Winchester couldn't read me the riot act if Sam wrote it out for him ahead of time and used really small words." She stepped away, letting go of Jo's hand. "Okay, so we look, we try and find something useful, and then?"

"Coffee," Jo grinned. "Yeah."

"And breakfast. " Nora rubbed her stomach. "I'm _starving_."

"You say that _here_?!" Jo blinked. "You? Are a freak."

"You never ate Maria's cooking. " Nora stopped, a shadow of sadness passing over her features. "She could lay out a hell of a spread when she had the time for it."

Jo turned in a circle, eyes traveling over the ruined room, searching for the hints of the life that'd been there before. "I wish I could have met her," she said sadly.

"I wish you could've too," Nora agreed. "Not that I should. " She smiled wryly at Jo. "You two would've gotten along too well, and there is no way that wouldn't end badly for me. No way at all."

"Big baby," Jo said lightly, nudging a singed pile of bedding with her boot.

"Pragmatic, baby. " Nora smacked her lightly as she passed by. "Believe me, I have a good idea how that meeting would've went." She feigned a shudder, winking at Jo. "Maria would've gotten too big a kick out of torturing me and you?" She laughed. "You two?"

"Birds of a feather?"

"Worse, " Nora assured. "What've you got there?"

"I'm not sure. " Jo shrugged. "It looks like bed sheets but they could just be out here because of the firemen."

"Maybe," Nora said, "maybe not." Pulling on a pair of latex gloves, she passed a pair to Jo as well and started picking apart the bedding. After a moment's examination, she looked up. "I'm thinking maybe not."

Jo looked with interest as Nora spread the sheet out and revealed the blood on it; the pattern of knees pressed into it. "Oh my God," she murmured, looking from the sheet to where the fire burned hottest, where the body had been. "This was moved before the fire started."

"Yep." Nora nodded. "Tidy little bastard," she commented. "They cleaned up after themselves." She straightened up, the sheet clutched in her hand. "They didn't mean to leave this behind."

"No?"

"What would be the point?" Nora pointed out. "Put down a sheet with the blood, take it up before the fire can get to it, and then leave it behind? If they wanted to destroy the evidence, leaving it with the body would've been smarter. The fire wouldn't have left much of it by the time the firemen could put it out."

"What would they have wanted with a bloody sheet?" Jo asked, reaching for the other end and holding it out.

The two women stared at the pattern of symbols painted on the white fabric that circled the stained impressions. They weren't immediately familiar to either woman or, at least, Jo didn't think they were. She didn't recognize them and Nora wasn't saying anything. Their arrangement suggested some kind of ritual but without any concrete information on what they were, Jo didn't want to speculate. This wasn't one she wanted to leave to guess work.

They'd figure it out anyway, now that they had a starting point.

"That answer your question?" Nora quirked a grin. "Jackpot, Shortstack – we just hit it."

*

Sam woke to the smell of coffee and he reached out blindly, grabbing for the mug his brother held just out of reach. "Asshole," he grumbled into the pillow. "Gimme."

"Get up and get it yourself," Dean shot back. "Do I look like the maid?"

"We get you a costume, shave your legs, and sure. " Sam yawned, rubbing at an eye as he sat up. "What're you doing up so early?" He squinted at the clock as he leaned over to get his coffee. "Sunrise? What the hell, Dean?"

"I was up. " Dean shrugged. "Woke up, couldn't sleep. Went out to get something to eat." He waved a hand at the bags sitting on the table.

"Rough night?" Sam wondered, throwing back the covers to investigate.

"Nah. " Dean shook his head. "Just woke up. Damn bed's got a loose spring - kept jabbing me in the ass."

Sam choked on his mouthful of coffee, sputtering and waving wildly. "You -- " He coughed. "You trying to kill me, Dean?"

His brother scowled at him. "And how would I be trying to do that this fine morning, huh, Sam?" He opened one of the bags and pulled out a styrofoam container. "I bring you scrambled eggs and this is the thanks I get?"

"Hey. " Sam grinned. "You're the one who just told me the bed's a pain in your ass. It's _not_ my fault."

"Sure it is. " Dean shrugged at him. "You took the bed I wanted. Should be your ass taking the beating." He sat down with his breakfast, putting his feet up on the table. "So, I did a little digging into the last victim while you were asleep."

Sam's eyes went to his laptop and he gave his brother a suspicious look. "That _all_ you were digging into?"

"Relax, Mary-Kate. " Dean waved a forkful of hash browns his way. "I stayed off the porn sites." He grinned and Sam grabbed for the computer. "Seriously, Sammy, not everything is about porn, y'know. Geez, which one of us is supposed to be the brother obsessed with sex again?"

"Fuck off," Sam mumbled, tapping keys. "You screwed this thing up again -- "

"And what? You'll tell Ellen I was muttering Jo's name in my sleep, or something?"

"Worse," said Sam, "I'll tell her you were muttering Jo's name when you were jacking off in the shower."

*

Stretching her neck, Jo yawned. "You better be feeding me after this," she warned Nora as she picked her way down the singed and ruined stairway. "I am _starving_."

Nora looked up from the kitchen door with a grin. "Would I leave you to starve? Your mother would kill me if she found out you weren't eating three square meals a day and flossing before bed."

"She'd kill you if you knew whether or not I _was_ flossing before bed, " Jo said breezily. "Mom probably thinks we're getting separate motel rooms."

"Ellen's not that dumb," Nora disagreed. "But, on the off chance she's having a bad week, we're going to let her _think_ that." She smiled innocently. "I like having my head free of bullets, not to mention the rest of me."

"Mom wouldn't shoot you," Jo said. "Not _much_." Wiping her hair away from her face with her forearm, she came to a stop beside Nora and held up the box in her hands. "Found some stuff. You?"

"Not what I was looking for," said Nora with obvious frustration. She gestured to the small pile of things on the table in the kitchen. "Which leaves me with three options; still hidden, stolen, or she got rid of it."

"What's 'it', exactly?" Jo asked, putting the box down and rubbing a wrist. "Something she used for – " She shrugged. "Y'know."

"Yeah, exactly, the stuff she used for y'know," Nora agreed, lips curving into a faint smile. "Maria had power, serious power, and that's not something you broadcast. She was careful about who she let near that part of her life or the tools she used in the practicing of it. So, either she's got everything locked up where _no one_ could find it, or she got rid of it ahead of time, or – " She shrugged. "I don't see her getting rid of it which leaves it's still here, just hidden, or the person who killed her took it."

"Well, I found just about everything I could that had any connections to you. " Jo nodded at the box. "Anything the cops didn't take anyway."

"Good. " Nora crouched down to start going through it. "I'm not easily found, even if they want to talk to me, but I'm not taking any chances. This is the kind of thing that draws hunters, and if we saw it? Odds are good the others did too; someone will be by to check it out. I'm not the only one who knew about Maria."

"You just knew her the best," said Jo, swallowing around a sudden lump in her throat. "Right?" She wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer to that question; she wasn't even sure why she wasn't sure. She looked away, shoving her hands into her pockets to watch the sun rising with more attention than it deserved.

"We were old friends. " Nora stood, holding a frame in her hands. "This was somewhere I knew I was safe." Jo looked back to watch her smile. "Not a whole lot of places like that out there I considered safe."

"I'm sorry," Jo said quietly, her hands hanging loose at her sides with the uncertainty of what to do. "I wish – " She grinned wryly. "I guess I said that already."

"Doesn't matter," said Nora, putting the picture back in the box. "I get what you mean." She exhaled. "We'd better get moving. Daylight; someone's bound to see us." Adding what she'd found to the box Jo was using, she picked it up. "You wanna drive?"

*

They found the diner a few blocks away from the house. Dean didn't ask before pulling the Impala into a parking space and Sam didn't complain. He left Dean to stow the stuff they'd gathered from the crime scene in the trunk and headed inside to find a seat.

Picking a booth in the corner, he opened the laptop and went to work on the notebook he'd found.

"So, her name was Maria Delgado," Sam reported when Dean slid into the booth across from him. "She ran a health food store down in the waterfront shopping district." Turning the computer so Dean could see, Sam continued, "She also appeared to work as a medium. Nothing mentioned about it in the ads for the shop, nothing even remotely New Age actually. Looks like it was all word of mouth."

"Psychic, huh?" Dean popped a fry into his mouth. "So, are we talking John Edwards or Sam Winchester on the scale of psychic?" He grinned at Sam's annoyed look. "What? Consider it a compliment, vote of confidence in your ability, or whatever." He waved a hand. "Delgado? You got an opinion?"

Sam bitchfaced at him for a moment before going back to the computer, spinning it back to face him. "Like I said, nothing mentioned in the ads, which says she wasn't playing up the profit angle. Looks like she might've been a consultant with the police in the area, her name turns up in a few of their reports. Could be the reason she was targeted."

"Could be," said Dean, nodding slowly. Dragging a fry through his ketchup, he continued, "I'm not convinced though. What're the chances every single victim's some kind of psychic and all living in pretty much a straight line? This doesn't feel right."

He watched Sam frown at the computer as he reached out for a handful of fries. "What? You think I'm blowing smoke again?" Dean grinned, shaking a dollop of ketchup out on his burger. Truth was, he wasn't so sure that he wasn't just blowing smoke. His gut was screaming they were missing something but he didn't have a damn clue what it was.

"No," said Sam, mouthful of fries muffling his response. "You blow smoke about pretty much everything, but you could be on to something." He smirked, grabbing his soda.

"Ass. " Dean swallowed a bite of burger. "Okay, so the fact I'm full of it has been tabled, we're generally sure we've got nothing, and we're going to check out the psychic angle while putting out feelers for whatever-the-hell-else it could be." He waved a hand. "Same old, same old."

"Pretty much," Sam agreed. "Don't forget the part where we've got to do it fast. Whoever's behind the deaths is in a hurry." He pushed the laptop aside, reaching for his plate. "The most time that's passed between deaths is forty-eight hours and it's already been thirty-six. We've got a ton of ground to cover."

"Yeah, well, I get the feeling we're about to get a little help on that, whether we want it or not." Dean leaned forward, lowering his voice. "Check out who just walked in the door." He nodded in that direction and kept his head low as Sam turned to see Jo and Nora let the door swing shut behind them. "How much you want to bet that emergency of Nora's was Maria dying?"

"I'd take those odds," said Sam, waving slightly at both women. "They don't look happy to see us."

"Since when's Nora _ever_ looked happy to see us?" Dean asked, risking a look at them. Nora frowned back at him._Yep, nothing new there._

"She always looks happy to see me," Sam reminded, a hint of superiority in his voice.

Dean snorted. "She's seen you twice in ten years."

"Still, happy to see me both times." Sam smirked.

"Fuck," Dean said, slouching in his seat. "They're coming over."

*

"Oh just brilliant," Nora sighed, letting the door swing shut behind them. "Look who's here."

Jo stopped beside her, close enough that Nora could feel her body heat, and scowled. "Fantastic, what are _they_ doing here?"

"Maria," said Nora, looking around the diner. She wrinkled her nose at the heavy smell of grease and stale cigarette smoke in the air. She'd lost count of the number of greasy spoons she'd eaten in over the years and this one was no different than a thousand others. "Sam probably figured it out from the news reports alone. Knowing him, he was up half the night with that computer of his, after Ash fixed it."

"Probably. " Jo flashed a quick, polite smile at the Winchesters. "This is a problem."

"It could be, " Nora said. "Could not be. We don't know what's behind this yet, but when we do, we may need the help. They can shoot straight enough and that's all I'm going to be worried about in a fight."

"I'm worried about who they'll shoot," Jo muttered.

Nora squeezed her wrist and smiled. "Dean couldn't hit me on his best day, " she assured. "He tries shooting at you and they'll be calling him Uniballer around the Roadhouse."

Jo snorted a laugh. "_Uniballer_?!"

"It sounds better than No-Ball. " Nora shrugged. "Consider it my one act of mercy for the century. You know Dean, he wakes up a eunuch; he goes nuts and ends up in the loony-bin. I can't do that to Sam, poor kid's been through enough in his life without seeing his brother committed because of sexual dysfunction."

"You are too much," Jo said, turning her head toward Nora, so, Nora supposed, Dean and Sam wouldn't see their laughter. "Seriously, Nora, where do you get this stuff?"

"I can't tell you that," said Nora with a wink. "Classified information, totally need to know." She glanced at the boys in time to see Dean sneak a look at them and she scowled. "We should probably go over there and talk to them, figure out just how much they know."

"Not as much as we do," Jo pointed out. "We got there first."

"And you complained about the late night break in," Nora teased. "See why you should always trust me?"

"I see why I _shouldn't_," said Jo. "Your ego is healthy enough now." She looked over. "Can't we just leave?"

"Nope. " Nora shook her head. "We do not run from Winchesters, Joanna Beth, not _ever_. Demons, yes, werewolves, okay maybe, Winchesters? Good GOD no." She added a mock-shudder for dramatic effect.

"Okay," Jo said, laughing. "We don't run. We go over there, steal fries, and grill them for everything they know and everything they don't. We'll even break out the rubber hose if they refuse to talk."

"That's my girl," Nora said proudly. Jo's cheeks tinged red and Nora looked away, biting her lower lip. Well now, wasn't that just the best example of a Freudian slip? _Watch it, Scott,_ she warned herself. _Talk like that gets a girl in trouble._ "C'mon, let's go make nice."

*

"Boys," Jo said brightly, shoving Dean over and sitting down. "Fancy meeting you two here."

"Yeah," Dean gritted out, obviously irritated. "Imagine that." She watched him flick a look Nora's way as Sam made room for her. "So, Nora, you handle the emergency? You two peeled out of the Roadhouse pretty fast."

"We're working on it," Jo cut in before Nora could, stepping on Dean's foot beneath the table and glaring at him when he started to protest. "Didn't think we'd be seeing you guys so soon," she said. "You guys said you might have a job in the area, did that pan out?"

"No," Sam answered with a shake of his head. "Dean was right, the guy was crazy. We figured we'd stick around for a couple days, enjoy the downtime and check out a few other leads before we move on."

"Good plan," Nora commented, smiling at the approaching waitress with an appreciative look on her face. "Enjoy the scenery. A little vacation would do you two good. You look a little wound up, Dean."

"Rough year," Jo said, not without sympathy. "So, you didn't find _anything_?"

"Nope." Dean coughed. "Total wild goose chase."

"Then what's with the laptop. " She pointed at it. "That looks like something to me. " She squinted. "Maria Delgado -- Nora, didn't I hear something on the radio about her?" She gave her partner a curious look. "I'm sure I did."

Nora licked her lips, nodding. "Murdered. House torched. Suspicious circumstances." She then looked up at the waitress and Jo grinned when she ordered for them both. "What've you got there, Sam?" Nora asked as the waitress walked away. "Anything interesting?"

Jo bit her lip and tried not to grin at the faintly panicked look Sam shot Dean's way. "You should be more careful with that laptop, guys," she advised with a smirk. "Anybody could walk by and see it."

Dean reached past her to close the laptop. "We were looking at that one, yeah. Something about it caught our eye. You two?"

"Maybe," Nora said, shrugging. "We're going to be in town anyway with things going on, so we might as well keep busy while we're here, right?"

"Yeah. " Jo nodded, watching Sam and Dean's reactions. They didn't buy it for a second, she could see that much from the looks they exchanged. She hoped Nora was right, that having these two blundering around in the middle of things would actually _help_, but she wasn't so sure about it.

*

Stepping out of the diner, Sam tilted his head back and squinted into the warm afternoon sun. "So, that was fun," he said, grinning at his brother.

"Those two know something," Dean grumbled, blowing by him and heading for the car. "You see the looks they were throwing at each other?" He stopped by the car and grinned suddenly. "Yeah, the looks were fun."

Sam stopped, trying to look patient as he listened to Dean ramble. "You're going somewhere with this, right?"

"They _know_ something," Dean repeated. "We're going back to the house. " He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the Delgado place. "Somewhere in that house? There's a connection to Nora and we're gonna find it, she's here because of her."

Shouldering his laptop case, Sam nodded and started toward the car again. "Probably. But if she's here, she's probably already checked out the house herself. Nora's not stupid, Dean, wouldn't she remove anything that'd connect her to Maria?"

Dean looked grim. "If this woman was a friend? She missed something. No way she's thinking clear enough to get everything." He shrugged. "I wouldn't get everything if I were her."

"Oh, so this is your way of saying Nora's at least as good as you?" Sam prompted with a smirk.

Dean grinned. "Well, now, I never said that. Let's not get hasty here. Nora's a straight shot but –"

"She still ended up tied to the same post you did, with cheerleaders threatening to turn you into flesh-eating zombies?" said Sam innocently. "Right, I forgot that."

"Like hell you did," Dean groused, opening the car door and getting in. "You didn't forget a damn thing, sure as hell haven't let me forget any of it either."

Getting in, Sam put the laptop in the backseat and then grinned broadly at his brother. "Can you blame me?"

"Yep. " Dean started the Impala. "Every single time you bring it up, over and over again." He grinned. "Not to mention dream up whole new ways of making you pay."

"You need to get laid, Dean," Sam grumbled. "You _really_ need to get laid."

*

Inside the diner, Jo watched the Impala pull away. "Yeah, they're onto us," she said, turning back to Nora.

"I figured they would be," Nora agreed. "We'll catch up with them sooner or later. " She smirked. "In the meantime, its fun watching them try to keep it from us. Poor Sam practically twisted himself into a knot that time."

Jo grinned. "Think they've been to her place yet?"

"If they haven't, that's where they're headed now." Nora grabbed a napkin and turned it toward herself, digging a pen out of her pocket. "Speaking of, we need to get back to the motel and take a good look at that sheet. I'm pretty sure I recognized some of the symbols on it but we're going to need a closer look."

"I thought I saw eyes drawn in the pattern," Jo agreed. "That's got to mean something."

"Well, they don't call them the windows to the soul for nothing," said Nora, sketching out designs on the napkin. "Some believe that if you stare into the eyes long enough you can see the all the facets of the soul."

"And if you can do that, then maybe you can tap into one of those facets. " Jo took the pen and fixed one design. "Like, maybe, the one that Maria's power came from?"

Nora sat back, surprised approval in her eyes. "Good point," she said. "I hadn't thought of that one yet." She drummed her fingers on the table, an action Jo ignored as she bent over the napkin again and drew the symbols she remembered. "Some of the other victims might be psychics, we can check, but they wouldn't have to be."

"Not if the killer is drawing out life energy, " Jo said, nodding. "Everyone's got that."

"Psychics just have more of it, " Nora agreed. "Eat fast, kiddo; we've got work to do."

*

The house was silent when they pulled up outside, like Dean had expected it would be. Cops, gawkers, and reporters had moved on even before they had shown up to do their 'crime scene clean up'. The cops had kept the gory details out of the press. Sam had bitched about that the whole way to town: a woman dying alone just wasn't that interesting to a cynical public. The fiery corpse had been enough to draw some attention but not enough.

It was sad, but not tragic. In Dean's head, tragic would've been the other way around. Big fuss, lots of attention, and nobody with any idea of what was _really_ going on able to get close enough to help. Better this way, he knew. People had their chance to rubberneck and he had the chance to find the son-of-a-bitch that had killed her.

Bonuses all around.

They parked the Impala a few houses down, just to be cautious, and circled around back to find a way in. The old porch door gave way easily to Dean's coaxing and they slipped in. He grinned, with the thrill that never really got old, and snickered at Sam's eye-rolling. "A guy gets his kicks where he can find 'em, Sammy," he advised sagely, leading him through the house.

"Keep telling yourself that one, Dean," Sam shot back.

"Oh I plan to." Coming to a stop in the kitchen door, Dean looked around the living room and grinned. "We ever retire from hunting; we'd make a killing at the crime scene clean up business. This place is _spotless_."

There was no hiding the fire damage to the living room but they had actually minimized it to the point the house was probably salvageable. In Dean's opinion, they'd done a pretty damn good job.

"Sure it is," said Sam dryly. "If you ignore the fire damage, water damage, and overall structural damage - then yeah, it's totally spotless." Stepping past Dean into the room, he craned his neck to look up and around. "I still say Nora would've cleaned this place top to bottom. If the cops didn't find anything connecting her to Maria before she got here, she'd make sure they won't now."

"Crime scene's been released," Dean said. Crossing the room to the big old desk that dominated the far wall, he yanked open a drawer and started digging through it. Papers soaked through with water from the firefighters still sat in the drawers and he frowned, trying to pry them apart. "Whatever's left wouldn't have mattered to the cops anyway."

"She wouldn't have known the cops had released it."

"Yeah she would. " Dean looked over at Sam. "Nora's not worried about the cops connecting her; they don't stand a chance of finding her anyway. She's worried about any hunters that might stumble across this and figure out the connection." He saw the look on Sam's face and frowned. "This is personal, Sam, she doesn't want them poking their noses in her business and getting in the damn way." He paused. "Situations were reversed, and I was in her place, I'd be doing the same thing. Like, I said, it's personal."

"Yeah, so?" Sam frowned. "I didn't say anything."

"Oh, sure you did. Your face does all the talking for you. You've got that 'I feel her pain' look going." Dean imitated it, much to Sam's obvious displeasure. "Nora's been hunting a while, Sam, long enough to know better than trust easy, especially not if she's dealing with hunters. Hell, she probably doesn't even trust _us_."

"She probably shouldn't," Sam said in a mutter Dean didn't think he was supposed to hear.

"Probably not," he agreed amiably. "And that's why she wasn't exactly spilling her guts at the diner - she's feeling us out. Seeing how much we know, and how much she can risk telling us."

"You wish she was feeling us out," Sam shot back.

Dean paused and grinned, letting him have that one for free. "She left something here," he said again, turning back to the search again. "She had to have."

"Who are you trying to convince?" Sam asked. "Either she did or she didn't, Dean."

"She did, " Dean said simply, holding up his find for his brother to see. "Photographic proof. Looks like Maria was sick or something too." He held out the picture. "Cancer maybe?"

Sam took the picture of Nora and Maria, grinning at the camera together. "Oh God."

*

Jo opened her eyes and looked to her left, watching Nora mumble into her pillow and kick a leg out. The bed sheets had long since fallen victim to Nora's kicking and that left long, lean legs bared to the Jo's eyes. She licked her lips, squirming against the sheets of her bed and frowned at her own restlessness.

She needed to sleep; tomorrow wasn't going to take care of itself and neither was that sheet.

Shifting on the bed, she looked over at it, spread over the table with her digital camera sitting beside it. The answers were in that thing, she could _feel_ it and she wasn't going to find them bleary-eyed from sleep deprivation.

She groaned, and punched her pillow with a scowl. Having a crush on her partner was the last thing she needed right now. If there was a relationship that could have less of a chance than her and Nora then she couldn't think of it right now. The Winchesters didn't count, she wasn't that big a masochist and that left who, Ash?

Jo snickered to herself quietly. She and Ash would work faster than she and Nora would, not that it was slowing her imagination any. She looked over in time to watch Nora roll onto her back and tuck an arm beneath her head.

When she realized she was staring, Jo muttered an oath and grabbed her pillow, covering her head with it.

Shit.

*

Emerging into the early-morning cool, Nora stretched and yawned. She had the grace, moments later, to blush when she realized she'd essentially yawned in Sam Winchester's face.

"Sorry," she said, grinning at him. "Didn't see you there, Sam."

He grinned back nervously. "That's a first."

"Well, blame it on my pre-caffeinated state. If I ran into a Wendigo before I had my coffee, the thing would have _me_ for breakfast," she said, leaning against the car with him. "What're the odds we'd end up in the same motel, huh?"

"Pretty good. " Sam grinned, offering her his coffee. "Dean followed you."

"Figured as much," she said. "And thanks, you're a saint."

He looked down at his feet. "Not exactly what I'd call myself."

"Jo won't tell me what happened," Nora said after a moment. "But I know it was bad." She nudged him gently. "You can relax, Sam, I'm not going to swear unholy vengeance on you two."

Sam sighed heavily, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "You'd have a reason to."

"I'm guessing you don't remember a lot of what happened?" Nora prompted, holding out his coffee again. "Demon possession's a bitch like that." She was the last person who should've been standing here, telling him that, but had a feeling he needed to hear it from someone who wasn't family.

"I remember enough," Sam insisted. "I know I said things to her, things about our dads."

"And how Bill died?" He nodded miserably while, for her part, Nora tried to hold back a sigh of relief. If this was the big thing Jo was hiding – well, Nora didn't think too closely on the fact she was _relieved_. "Sam, it was a _demon_."

"Demons can tell the truth about some things," he said mulishly. "Meg said that my father _killed_ Jo's dad."

Nora winced. Fuck. That wasn't one she'd seem coming but she probably should have, given John Winchester's history. "Maybe he did," she said slowly, taking the time to think over her words. Whatever she did now, she didn't want to fuck this up anymore than it already was. "But I doubt it was what this Meg made it out to be. Demons twist truth, Sam, they don't _tell_ it. They get in your head and screw things up so bad you can't tell what's truth and what's lie. It's what they do."

She smiled bitterly. "You give a demon half a chance and it'll fuck you over so hard you'll be walking funny for a month."

He looked over at her. "Do I want to know?"

Nora shook her head. "No, you don't." She waved her hand. "I may be full of shit on most things, Sam, but on this one I'm actually telling you the truth. Don't make me have wasted a perfectly good morning being honest for nothing."

Sam chuckled. "You're right, Nora, you are full of shit." He passed the coffee back. "But you make it smell good."

"It's a gift," she said flippantly. "Thanks for the coffee."

"Thanks for the shit." Sam grinned and pushed away from the car. "Listen, if you need help – " He gestured. "You know where to find us right?"

She nodded silently, waiting for the motel door to close behind him before saying, "I know."

*

Dean was gun-cleaning when Sam walked back into the room or, really, he was doing a damn good job of gun-cleaning. If Sam looked closely, he would've seen the curtain still moving. "Coffee?"

Sam put a cup on the table beside him and went to sit down. "Black. Sorry, the waitress didn't give up her phone number. She thinks you're weird."

"Liar," Dean muttered, taking the coffee. "Where's yours?" He asked, doing a passable job of innocent.

"You know where it is. " Sam grinned. "Think I didn't know you were watching?"

"What'd she want?"

"To apologize for yawning at me."

"Huh, wha?" Putting down the coffee, Dean turned. "She wanted to what?"

"Nothing," Sam waved a hand. "We were just talking, Dean, it's what people do when they're friends. They talk."

"And what do friends talk about when they share coffee and sit on my damn car," Dean groused. Sam snickering didn't do a hell of a lot to improve his mood but Dean thought it counted that he didn't shoot him. "Seriously, Sam, what the hell was that all about?"

"Like I said," Sam insisted stubbornly. "Nothing, we were _talking_. It's too early for heart-to-hearts, Dean."

"Not a hint of what she's working on, huh?" Dean picked up another gun.

"Nope." Sam shook his head. "I said if she needed help, but you know Nora."

Dean smirked. "She turned you down flat." That wasn't exactly news; he'd called it when he said Nora wouldn't want any help. He was even surprised that Jo was still around. If this was about revenge, Jo was just going to slow Nora down. All things considered she definitely wasn't going to be much of a help.

"Not entirely." Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw Sam look toward the window. "She'll ask me if they need it."

The confidence in his voice made Dean look twice. "That must've been one hell of a cup of coffee you gave her."

Sam smiled slightly. "It wasn't bad."

*

"Where'd you get the coffee?" Jo asked, scrubbing a towel through her hair as Nora stepped into the room with a single cup in her hand. It looked like she hadn't made it to get breakfast after all.

"Ran into Sam," Nora explained. "He was done with it." She held it out. "Want some?"

Jo dropped the towel and reached for the cup, wondering when everything Nora said would stop sounding like an innuendo. "Yeah, sure. Thanks."

"You okay?" Nora asked with a curious look. "You seem tired."

"Didn't sleep well. " Jo shrugged, thinking it wasn't the time to bring up exactly what had kept her up. Walking past Nora to the window, she peeked out the curtains to see the Impala parked between the rooms. "So, I'm guessing Sam and Dean are staying here too? Either that, or we finally rate all night surveillance?" She glanced back at Nora, grinning playfully. "And we didn't even do anything worth watching."

"You wish we had. " Nora grinned, sitting down at the laptop.

"More like Dean wishes." Jo sat on the bed, relieved that Nora hadn't seen the look on her face. "So, what'd Sam have to say?"

"Not much," Nora said, not looking up from the computer screen. "He offered to help. His way of hinting they know what we're doing here."

The 'we' in the sentence was probably more reassuring for Jo than it should have been but she said nothing. Nora wasn't telling her everything, she could see that, and she wasn't in the mood to share either. "Think they found something at the house?"

"I think there's a damn good chance they did. We cleaned out everything I could see but that doesn't mean I didn't miss something."

Jo nodded. "Probably," she said, taking a swallow of coffee. "It was a mess when we left." She was curious to know how Sam and Dean had gotten in, it'd been daylight when they'd left and if the boys had been there before them, the sheet wouldn't have been there. "I looked at the other victims again."

"And?" Nora prompted.

"You were right, a couple of them were psychics but I think a couple more were hunters. I think I recognize a couple of the names from around the Roadhouse. It makes sense, a couple of the murder scenes were motels. Low rent ones."

"I'll look at the names later," Nora answered. "See if there's any I recognize."

"You're afraid, aren't you?" Looking away as she asked the question, Jo was careful to keep her voice neutral and made a show of digging out her hairbrush from her bag. "If you do know them, then it could mean they're being targeted because of you."

"It's possible," Nora agreed. "I'm not exactly John Winchester with tits, a demon with a bead on my ass around every corner, but it is possible. You hunt long enough, you make enemies. There's no way around it, no matter how big a disaster you are. People profit off pain and misery, most of them don't care who's causing it, they care when the money dries up."

Jo nodded, wincing when the brush hit a tangle. She fought with the tangle for a moment then finally looked at Nora again, finding the other woman watching her stoically. "You okay?"

Nora smiled. "I'm scared to death."

Not ready for such a frank admission, Jo had no idea what to say for a moment and picked up the coffee to take another swallow. Rubbing at the cup's edge, she hesitated over asking, "Do you want me to leave?"

The silence seemed to stretch between them for a moment before Nora laughed. "Fuck no," she said. "I want you to stay right here where I can keep an eye on you. You try to head for the Roadhouse now, alone, you're an easy target." She shook her head. "Ellen would use my bones as pool cues."

Laughing with relief, Jo tossed the brush at her. "You are such a dork."

"Yes, but I'm a hot dork. " Nora dodged the brush and held out her hand. "Now, gimme my damn coffee back."

*

When Dean suggested his plan, Sam initially thought he was kidding but then he remembered. This was _Dean_. "You can't seriously think that this is going to work," he complained, looking at his brother over the laptop.

Shoving a camera into his bag, Dean looked back with raised brows. "Course it's gonna work. She's off her game, not thinking clearly. It'll be tricky, but it'll work." He shouldered the backpack and grinned. "Coming?"

"_No_. " Sam rolled his eyes. "Someone's got to stay here and call the paramedics when one of them shoots you. Dean, there's no way you're going to get close enough to be effective."

"The room next door to them is empty," Dean pointed out. "The walls are like tissue paper. It shouldn't be hard to poke a hole in one, somewhere they're not gonna notice and get a peek at what's going on." Walking to the window, he shoved the curtain aside with a finger and peered out. "Nora's on the move again, now's our chance."

Sam resisted the urge to bang his head against the table. Knocking himself out? Satisfying but not going to help Dean. "Y'know, there are days you remind me of a genius I heard of once."

"Oh yeah?" Dean looked over his shoulder with a grin. "Who's that? Einstein? Hawking? Dre?"

"Wile. E. Coyote." Sam ignored the finger his brother flashed at him and grabbed his coat. "Look, if you're going to do this, at least make sure she's actually _gone_ before you try and sneak over there. Where's Jo?"

"On the first bus back home if she knows what's good for her," Dean answered absently. "Safer for her to be with Ellen right now."

Sam shrugged into his jacket. "She's safer with Nora, Dean. At least, right now she is. She tries to travel back alone? She's gonna have to go by bus and if she does, there's a lot of stops between here and the Roadhouse. That's a lot of chances for somebody to get to her."

"Like anybody'd try," Dean grumbled. "You seen that kid lately? She's a pain in the ass. Woman irritates dead serial killers."

Sam snorted. "As opposed to you, the guy who they just love hanging out with?"

"It's my charm," Dean smirked. "So, you actually planning on coming with me or are you just modeling the latest spring look from Hunter Quarterly?" He surveyed Sam with appraising eyes and then waved a hand. "Nah, forget it. That's more of a fall look anyway. Never could get you to dress right."

"The guy watches a few Project Runway reruns and he thinks he's Tommy Hilfiger, " Sam said under his breath. Louder, he said, "Just get moving, Dean. If I'm going to get my head blown off, I'm not going to spend my last moments getting fashion advice from a guy who thinks the eighties were a good decade for hair." Pausing in the doorway, he surveyed his brother. "You'd still have the acid-washed jeans if that ghost in LA hadn't ripped them off."

"Shut up and get going. " Dean pushed him out the door. "Those jeans made my ass look great, man."

*

 

*

Nora was halfway across the parking lot when movement caught her eye and she glanced back. "The hell?" She muttered, turning to watch Sam and Dean weaving through the cars, heading in the direction of the room she and Jo were in. They were not doing what she thought they were doing. No _way_.

"Oh for God's sake," she groaned, ducking down when Sam turned to stand guard as Dean picked the lock of the empty room next door. "They _are_."

Grabbing her phone out of her pocket, she stood again and slowly started to make her way back in the direction of the room. As soon as Jo picked up her cell, Nora said, "The boys are in the room next to ours. I'm on my way back -- Yes, I am _serious_. They are in that room next to ours, the one the honeymooners were in last night. Dean's still trying to figure out if we really are working Maria's death, or not."

She hung up on Jo's laughter and pocketed the phone again.

For once? This was going to be fun.

*

"Well now. " Dean closed the door behind him. "Looks like we missed a hell of a party." He watched Sam nudge a discarded pair of panties with his foot. "They don't bite, Sam, " he pointed out with a grin. "But if you're lucky -- "

Sam rolled his eyes. "Fuck off, Dean."

"I'm just sayin', it's been a while for you buddy. We get through this, you are so grabbing the first girl we see that's not Jo or Nora." Dean faked a shudder. "Seriously." Turning to face the wall adjoining Nora and Jo's room, he pressed an ear against it and listened. "Sounds like just Jo, Nora can't be back yet."

"How much can you hear?"

"TV, Jo moving around, sounds like she's doing weapons inventory or something. They're prepping for a fight." Dean looked back. "They've got something, Sam. Something we don't. We've gotta get into that room."

Behind him he heard the bed squeak as Sam sat down then he heard a muffled curse and the sound of Sam stumbling to his feet again. "Dude, what the hell?" he hissed, spinning to glare at his brother. "Are you _trying_ to get us busted?"

Sam swallowed, flustered, and he gestured to the bed that he'd been sitting on. "Uh, sorry, just -- " He shrugged. "I didn't see it."

His gaze following to where his brother was pointing and snickered. "Don't see how you can miss it," he said casually of the purple dildo. "That one's kind of, well, _yeah_. Obvious."

"Who the hell was staying here?!" Sam complained, gesturing to the paraphernalia scattered about the room. "The Playboy bunnies?"

"Hooker probably. " Dean grinned. "Should've stopped by, Sammy, you could use it." He turned away from his brother's aggravated expression and pressed an ear to the wall again. "Now, can we _try_ for a little silence? I'm eavesdropping here."

*

Leaning against the door, Jo looked across at Nora with a grin. "So, how do we do this?" She asked, conscious of keeping her voice low. Advice Sam and Dean could have used as their bitching was easily heard through the door.

"Guess the room service gag's a little old, huh?" Nora tossed back, smirking.

"A little."

"Security?"

"Depends on if Dean has a gun handy." Jo shrugged. "That and we stand clear of the door."

Nora laughed. "True, true, he's a little wound up. Don't think they're getting much action on the girl or demon front lately. That'll make any man trigger happy and, God knows, Dean's trigger happy when he _is_ getting some of both."

"I do not want to know how you know that." Jo pinched the bridge of her nose. "I really don't."

"He's _Dean Winchester_," said Nora. "Duh."

Jo grinned. "Okay, you've got a point there." Dean had his secrets but, yeah, some days he wasn't that hard to figure out. Subtle and Dean didn't mix. "How about we just kick the door down?"

"Meh, manual labor is like performing an exorcism, a matter of necessity. " Nora made a face. "The direct route's easier." She banged a fist on the door. "Boys! Open the fuck up!"

The noise on the other side of the door died quietly and Jo doubled over, hugging her middle as she laughed. Oh God, this was too easy. She could almost see the looks on their faces and when the door didn't open, she composed herself enough to sweetly add, "We know you're in there, Sam."

"Come on boys," said Nora. "Don't make me get the shotgun."

Jo looked over. "We lost the shotgun last week with that -- " She waved a hand. Swamp monster sounded so PG-13 and that thing? Wes Craven wished he could dream up one of those.

"Ah, but they don't know that," Nora reminded.

Jo pressed her lips together and leaned her head against the doorframe, her shoulders shaking with the suppressed laughter. The grin curving Nora's lips could only be described as diabolical and she couldn't look at her without laughing harder.

The door knob turned and then the door slowly swung open to reveal a guilty-looking Sam.

"There," Nora soothed with a smile, "that wasn't so hard now was it?"

"You know," Jo put in, "if you guys wanted to know what we're working on, you could've just _asked_." She looked past Sam at the room, taking in the reek of sex and the disaster that had been the bed. "Or, uh, did we come at a bad time?"

Sam thumped his head against the door and closed his eyes. "I knew this was a bad idea," he moaned. "I _said_ it was."

"Nah, it's perfect timing," Dean said, thumping his arm as he came to stand beside his brother. "How about you girls come in here and hang out while we check out your room? You two can _play_ a bit. Plenty of stuff to keep you occupied."

"Oh, like I need toys for that," Nora rolled her eyes. "If you need props, Dean, you're not doing it right."

Dean smirked. "You, of all people should get the variety, spice of life angle. Don't knock it 'til you've tried it, sweetheart."

Nora scowled at him. "When hell freezes over."

He clutched at his chest playfully, "Oh, that _hurts_, Nora."

Jo looked at Sam, grinning when he rolled his eyes. "You can dress them up," she said to him, laughing.

"Can't take 'em anywhere. " He nodded.

"Shut up you two," Dean complained, glaring at them both. "The adults are talking."

"Yes," Jo agreed mildly. "We are now, _shush_." She spun and pointed at Nora. "That means you too."

Nora looked surprised but, to Jo's surprise, said nothing.

"We need to talk," Jo continued, turning back to Sam. "About Maria Delgado."

"So when you left the Roadhouse, you knew about Maria but that was it?" Sam said, sitting down across from Jo.

"At the time, yes. " Jo nodded at him. "We were planning on going to see her anyway, but then Nora got a call and -- " She shrugged. "Yeah." He watched her look up and turned to watch Nora take position by the door, folding her arms across her chest and hugging tight. Behind Jo, Dean was in a very similar posture - leaning against the far well.

Sam swallowed a laugh. Well, _this_ was going to be fun. Looking at Jo, he saw the awareness in her eyes and amusement too.

Sam let a grin escape and she matched it. The West Bank wasn't this tense and they thought it was _funny_? That therapist he'd talked to last year, Doctor Ellicott popped into his brain and he bit the inside of his cheek to suppress the snicker. Somehow, he didn't think Nora or Dean would find the idea of making some shrink's head explode funny.

At least not right now.

"You guys knew about the others?" Jo asked, grabbing a pen off the table beside her and tapping it against the chipped surface. She'd just found a rhythm, casually falling into a beat when Dean snatched the pen out of her hand. She scowled, protesting with, "HEY!"

"Don't," he gritted out, slapping the pen back down on the table again.

"Yeah," Sam said slowly, continuing the conversation while his hand closed around the pen and he glared at his brother. "I found some reports on the internet and we decided to check them out. Things at the Roadhouse were awkward, we thought it'd be a good idea to get moving."

He didn't miss the way Nora snorted but he said nothing, just watched Jo bite her lip as they both waited for the expected explosion from behind her. Mercifully, Dean kept silent and Sam released the breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

Jo seemed to share his relief as she leaned in to murmur, "Next time? We call each other -- separate investigations. On separate _coasts_."

He nodded and leaned back. "Anyway, we headed out this way to try and get ahead of it. But, when we did, Dean thought sitting and waiting wasn't going to help so we came back here to check out Maria's house." Sam shrugged. "And here we are, playing Spy vs. Spy with you two."

Jo grinned at him, relaxed in her impertinence. Sam glanced back at Nora again, thinking maybe there was a shadow of a smirk glinting at him from her eyes. "Hey, we were just being cautious, you two were the ones actively hiding what you were doing."

"We're not hiding evidence," Sam said smoothly, enjoying his turn to grin as Dean managed to look both grim and smug at once. "You two are."

"Are not," Jo protested with a shake of her head.

"There was nothing in that house, Jo," Sam pointed out as Dean shifted, thumping a foot against the wall. "We checked, top to bottom. _Nothing_. The cops aren't looking for the same things we do, so I'm guessing they missed something and you two found it."

Jo set her jaw, again shaking her head. "Nope, sorry."

"Tell him," Nora said, surprising them both. Her voice sounded oddly defeated, tired and Sam didn't think he wanted to look. "They'll find out sooner or later."

For a second, Sam thought Jo was going to argue but she just sighed. "We found a sheet with symbols on it, written in blood."

"Well, now," Dean finally said, "that's unexpected."

*

Walking into the motel room, Dean closed the door behind him and leaned against it, grinning at his brother. "You know, I'm reasonably sure those two are sleeping together."

Sam looked up from his laptop, a blank look on his face. "They who?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "Bert and Ernie! Who do you _think_, stupid." He walked forward and waved a hand in the direction of the room next door. "Jo and Nora!" Shrugging out of his coat, he tossed it aside and sat on the other bed. "Seriously, you saw the looks those two were trading back and forth. You know I'm right man, little Jo was watching Nora like she just found Jesus."

"Oh yeah. " Sam pushed the laptop away and sat back, putting his hands behind his head. "This should be good," he decided. "All right, let's hear it, Dean. Other than the looks you think they were trading, why exactly do Jo and Nora _have_ to be sleeping together? Other than to feed your demented brain," he warned, "keep in mind that the word butch should not cross your lips as any sort of adjective to describe Nora."

"Take all the fun out of it why don't you?" Dean groused, slouching away from the door to drop down on the first bed.

"It's a living," Sam shot back with a shrug. "Plus, it keeps me from killing you. So we'll call that a win."

"She is, y'know. " Dean lifted his head, pointing at him. "You seen her handle a gun lately? Or, y'know, _breathe_?"

"You're just pissed off because she won't handle _yours_." Sam smirked wider and ducked the pillow Dean threw at him in retaliation. "Besides, if Ellen didn't want Jo traveling with you, do you really think she's going to let Jo go off with Nora, if she thought for a second there'd be a little girl on girl action between exorcisms? She would've shot her first."

Dean sighed happily and leaned back on the bed. "Can you imagine the sex, man? Those two?" He whistled, brain gleefully providing him with exactly that image in full screen digital quality. "Damn, that'd be something to see."

"Dean. " Sam sat up and stared at him. "Nora will murder us both if you try anything."

"Who says I'm going to try anything?" Dean asked, innocent grin on his face. "I'm just saying, it'd be _hot_."

His brother groaned, covering his eyes. "She's going to kill us. Nora is totally going to kill us and it's going to be your fault." After a moment, he glared out from beneath his hand. "She better kill you first, or I swear to God, whatever time I get haunting you? Not enough rock salt in the _world_, Dean."

Dean snickered and got off the bed, going to get a drink. "Trust me, Sammy; Nora is not going to kill us. I am not going to try anything except, maybe spend hours upon hours entertaining myself with my very own personal porno in my head starring those two." He grinned. "Maybe write a letter to Penthouse."

He stood up and turned around, just in time for Sam to nail him, with the pillow, in the head.

*

When Jo was younger, she'd thought for sure hunting was nothing but action. Her dad had made it seem like one big adventure, rushing from one fight to the next, a gun in one hand and a cross in the other. Since she'd started hunting herself, she'd learned better.

Hunting was 10% shit-your-clothes-action and 90% mind-numbing research.

Guess who got the mind-numbing research? For now, Jo was content to let Nora pull rank and stick her with the boring work. Nora made sure that she got a great pay-off later. Realizing how that sounded, Jo grinned to herself, exorcising demons was fun but not really the pay-off she _really_ wanted.

She let herself picture that one for a moment, practically feeling Nora's long legs sliding over hers, but then Sam coughed and Jo flinched. Sitting up, she cleared her throat and pushed her hair back from her face, hoping he hadn't noticed the sudden flush that'd stolen over her skin.

Exhaling, she went back to the translation and, staring at the papers before her, suddenly realized something. "Sam?" she prompted, looking up. "Tell me I'm crazy."

Sam hesitated a moment before saying, "Huh?"

"Just look at this." With a quick roll of her eyes, she shoved a paper toward him. "I cannot be translating that right." Picking up the photographs of the sheet again, she searched until she found the blow ups of the tiny phrase repeated all through the drawings. "This cannot say what I think it says," she insisted, a smirk starting to form on her face.

She put down the pictures and watched Sam frown, looking back and forth. "Uh, yeah it can," he said, a grin replacing his frown. "You're reading it right."

Jo laughed. "_Great_. If this one doesn't beat all -- "

Sam grinned and nodded. "Kinda takes the drama out of it, doesn't it?"

"It definitely lessons the angst a bit, yeah, " said Jo, leaning back in her chair.

"What takes the drama out of what?" Nora asked and they looked up to see Dean and Nora coming through the door with bags of food in hand.

"Translation on the writing from the sheet." Jo swallowed. "It's kinda -- " She shook her head, still grinning. "It's pretty weird, Nora."

"Weird how?" Dean dropped the food on the bed and Sam scrambled to catch it before anything spilled. "Lemme see." He snatched it and Jo resisted the urge to kick him. Not that he didn't deserve kicking, he was _Dean_, but she wasn't wearing her boots. Plus, with him, Nora, and Sam? She was pretty much the only responsible adult in the room.

Instead of kicking him, Jo rested her chin on her palm and watched him with a smirk. The reaction when he read _it_ was going to be better than the kick anyway. Much more satisfying.

"Son-of-a-bitch!"Dean gaped. "You two are messing with me, aren't you?"

Sam rolled his eyes at Jo and she laughed. "Yeah, that's it. I spent the entire afternoon holed up in here with cold coffee, a bunch of dusty books, Sam's laptop, and _Sam_, just to screw with your head a little." She took the papers back. "I wouldn't need a whole afternoon for that - not with your pea brain."

"Hey!" Sam protested.

"Sorry. " She smiled semi-apologetically at him. "I was on a roll."

"Is anyone going to share what the hell's supposed to be so funny?" Nora asked, preempting Sam's response. "Or do I just get to stand here and brighten the room with my overwhelming hotness?"

Dean snorted, Sam grinned, and Jo led them all in a group eye-roll.

"As much as I want to say yes to that one?" Jo held out the paper to her. "I don't think you're going to be in the mood to joke around when you read this."

"I can handle a few jokes," Nora assured dryly, taking the paper and reading it. "Is this for real?"

"Yeah. " Jo nodded. "I checked and rechecked. Sam checked it too and we're sure. That's what it says."

"I do not believe this. " Nora handed it back and sat down. In the gloom of the motel room, she looked years older than she was and Jo bit her lip, watching. She had an idea of what Nora was thinking and she swallowed, hard, against the pain.

"Somebody's idea of a cruel joke?" Sam offered with some sympathy. "I mean, it can't be for real, right?"

"You'd think," said Jo, the run-in with Julia coming to mind.

"But you wouldn't?" Dean prompted.

"No," said Nora. "She wouldn't and neither would I." She looked away, staring out the window. "I think I know who's behind this."

*

The motel room door clicked shut behind her for only a moment before opening again. "Who?" Jo asked from behind her and Nora smiled.

"Who do you think?"

"I don't know. " The shrug in Jo's voice was easily audible. "You said yourself: you've got enemies."

"I got hunters who think I'm a bitch, other people who think I'm crazy. " Nora looked skyward, eyes tracking the progress of a bird flying overhead. _Lucky bastard._ "This? For this you need a special brand of hate."

"Only one I would know who hates you that much is Julia, and you killed her." Jo said.

Nora stayed silent, letting her think that one over for a long moment. Jo knew what she was doing, it wouldn't take her long. Her belief was rewarded by a sudden yelp and Jo grabbing her arms, yanking her around to face her.

"You've got to be shitting me!" Jo said in disbelief. "That bitch is _alive_?!"

"Well, in a manner of speaking -- " Nora grinned.

"Shut up, " Jo complained. "How the hell did she survive? You _killed_ her."

"No. " Nora shook her head. "I _shot_ her. I aimed for the heart, that should've been enough to kill her but that doesn't mean it did. Julia's always had a knack for getting her ass out of trouble. Looks like she's spending her eternity honing her skills." She sighed, rubbing her forehead. "She's the only one I can think of, Jo, that would be coming after me like this, the only one who would hate me that much."

"It could be a demon, trying to lure you out or something." Jo suggested, letting go of her arms.

Nora grinned. "No it wouldn't. I'm not that valuable a target. Like I said before kiddo, I'm not John Winchester with tits. I just act like it." She looked back at the door and thought of the men on the other side of it. "We're going to have to tell them about this, _God_, that's going to suck."

"Dean's probably never going to let you live it down." said Jo, looking sympathetic.

"Not a chance in hell." Nora nodded. "Fuck."

Jo sighed. "I can't believe she made it out."

"I should've made sure," Nora said. "Gone back and cut off her head. God, I could kick myself for that, there's no room for sentimentality in our business and I _knew_ that." She paced a few steps away, leaning her forearms on the car. "I knew, and I still couldn't make myself finish it." Maria, the others, all dead because of _her_. Her stupid weakness had killed them all and God only knew who else was on her hit list. "I won't make that mistake again," she muttered. "Never again."

"It wasn't your fault, Nora," Jo reassured, resting a hand on her shoulder. "Don't blame yourself for this."

Nora lowered her head and smiled bitterly. What the hell was she supposed to do? "They're dead, Jo," she said. "Dead because I couldn't kill someone I loved." She closed her eyes and, for a second, there was the Julia she remembered. "We'd known each other for years, she was always fascinated by psychics and power. My mother's family was right up her alley, once she found out about it, it was all she could talk about."

She swallowed, feeling the ghost of Julia's lips on hers. "I gave in and showed her some of Mom's things, just some of the innocent stuff. Nothing fancy, or so I thought, but I was wrong. I don't know what she found, or what exactly she took, but she took something."

"That can't be why she's doing this now," Jo interrupted and Nora glanced at her, watching her frown. "It _can't_ be, Nora. It's not good enough."

"No, but it started her on the path." Nora shrugged. "You don't just wake up one morning like that. It's a process and I think Julia's started the day I let her near the real deal. People run around out there thinking they understand these things, thinking they can dabble in it, control it, they don't have a fucking clue what they're screwing with and Julia? Julia didn't know either, not until she met me. You ever hear of Typhoid Mary?"

She waited for Jo's nod of confirmation and when it came, continued. "That's who we are, Jo. We go out there, thinking we're going to save the world from this stuff and sometimes, we save someone's world, but not quite. Their lives are never the same again. They can't go back to pretending this stuff doesn't exist. They can't believe the lie that this is all just a figment of the uneducated mind." She laughed bitterly, shaking her head. "We save them but we don't _save_ them. They're never the same. Never. Julia met me and I thought it was about falling in love. All I did was unlock a door that she should never have been able to open. I made the monster."

And she knew then. that she was going to be the one to slay her.

*

"Looks intense," Sam commented, turning away from the window.

"Lover's quarrel." Dean dismissed, opening a soda and putting his feet up. "They'll be back in a second, all happy and lovey-dovey again."

Sam rolled his eyes at the smirk. "_If_ they come back. The way Nora bolted out of here says whoever's behind this?" He winced. "It's gotta be bad."

"Yeah. " Dean's head bobbed in a nod. "Probably is." He didn't say it but Sam could hear it and he looked over at him, veiled aggravation in his eyes. Whatever the fuck was hanging between Dean and Nora now was getting old, had _gotten_ old the minute it started, and Sam was almost tempted to lock them in a room. No weapons, nothing to distract them, they'd fight it out and hopefully put each other out of his and Jo's misery.

Sam grabbed the soda out of his brother's hand and swallowed half of it in a gulp. "If it's that bad, she's not going to tell us."

"No, but Jo will." Dean snatched the can back. "She's worried about Nora. She'll tell us who's behind it to keep Nora from doing something stupid."

"You think Nora will?" Sam saw the look on Dean's face and answered for him. "You would. Yeah, but Nora's not you."

"Damn straight she's not." Dean grinned. "I wouldn't do something stupid. I'd do it _smart_." He pushed out of the chair and crossed the room, peering through the curtains. "Nora's good, but she's not thinking clear. Chances of her doing something stupid about this? Pretty damn good. I'm not that sloppy."

"Sure you're not."

Dean looked back and Sam met his gaze evenly. "You think I'm lyin'?"

"No, I think you're full of shit."

Dean paused and then shrugged. "Fair enough." He looked back, watching the two women. "This is a fucking mess."

"Really?" said Sam dryly. "I thought things were going pretty well, considering. We haven't even been menaced by the latest representative of the undead yet."

"Yet, " Dean grumbled. "Trust me, the way you attract them? Those hookers were probably succubae."

"You mean your type of girl," Sam shot back.

"Always did like 'em dangerous."

"Or unavailable," Sam added. "God knows, Nora qualifies." He didn't wait for Dean's protest. "That's what bugs the hell out of you about her. " He grinned. "She's a loose end. A girl who actually turned you _down_ and kept on turning you down. Can't even say it's because she doesn't like guys, she just doesn't like _you_."

Stealing Dean's chair, Sam put his feet up on the end of the bed and got comfortable. "Face it, Dean, whatever went on with me and Jo? It's got nothing to do with the pissing match you and Nora are in right now." Leaning over, he got another can off the table and cracked it. "What _is_ going on, Dean? What's got you and Nora at each other's throats?"

It took a moment before Dean turned away from the window to look at him. "Personality. Pure and simple. Me and Nora? We're not happy unless we're ten seconds from killing each other. It's the whole mutually assured destruction thing."

Sam swallowed a mouthful of soda and looked at him. "That? That is the biggest pile of horse shit I've ever heard."

"Well, I never said it was going to sound pretty. " Dean smirked. "It's just us. It's hardcore this time. She's pissed and I'm pissed, but we'll probably end up drunk off our asses before this is all over, singing show tunes or some shit."

"Please. " Sam grimaced. "If you do? Shoot me first. I don't wanna see that."

"If we do, Sammy? I can't shoot you, you've gotta shoot _me_." Dean sat down on the bed and shoved Sam's feet out of the way. "Believe me, after that? I won't be able to go on living."

"Oh yes you will," Sam said. "If you die then I get the car."

Dean scowled. "Fuck."

*

With her confession made, Nora left Jo and went back to their room where a long, hot shower was calling her name. When she emerged from the shower and wrapped herself tight in the bathroom's sole, worn towel. [full stop, capitalized] She stopped before the steam-filled mirror, wiping away the steam, she stared at herself for a long moment. The reflection that stared back was as threadbare as the towel she wore.

Julia.

Lowering her head, Nora pressed her lips together and gripped the edges of the sink tightly. The memory of hands long absent sliding over her thighs came too easy and she hissed out a breath, seeing the image of Julia's wicked gaze watching her through disheveled blond curls.

She looked up to meet her own eyes in the mirror, seeing the confusion and desire there and turned away with a muttered, "Fuck."

It had to be done, it _had_ to be done. People were dying because of her, because of Julia. She didn't have a choice.

Sucking in a breath, she turned back to the mirror and picked up a hairbrush.

That's when the phone trilled.

*

She knew Nora wouldn't like it, but Jo left the research with Sam and Dean and followed her back to the motel room. Jo really didn't give a damn about the sheet right now, or the bodies, or any of it. She cared about the look in Nora's eyes before she'd walked away.

Something about it made Jo's stomach clench ominously and that feeling meant she didn't want to leave Nora alone right now.

The shower was running when she stepped into the room, sitting down on her bed and tugging the laptop toward her. She was patient and contented herself with composing a 'Hi Mom, I'm not dead yet' email to kill the time, while she waited for Nora's stalling tactic to run out of steam.

"I know I must sound like your Mom," she said when Nora finally stepped out into the room. "Are you okay?"

Nora laughed. "Okay's relative in this business. I'm not about to eat a bullet, so I'm good," she said, dropping onto the bed next to her. "Watching porn?"

Scoffing, Jo nudged her hard with an elbow. "Not unless you count writing an email to Mommy as porn."

"Well, all depends on who you are." Nora teased, leaning over Jo's shoulder to look. "What'd you say about me?" Reaching across Jo's midsection, she tapped the mouse control, skimming through the text. "Hey. " She turned, pulling back to look at Jo. "I do not snore."

"Uh. " Jo swallowed, hoping Nora hadn't noticed the way she'd shivered at the brush of her hair. "Yes, you do, kind of. It's not exactly a freight train hitting a bridge, maybe just an 18-wheeler."

"Cute," Nora said, not moving away. Jo shifted, watching her read a few more lines. "Oh that's sweet. So I'm not a total bitch?"

"Well, yeah, you pretty much are but don't worry, it works for you." Jo assured.

"I'm relieved. " Nora smiled and Jo almost frowned. Something was going on, she could _feel_ something was going on, even if Nora was doing her best to cover it up. "Now your mother won't shoot me."

"I never said that," said Jo. "She may shoot you on principle."

Nora closed her eyes. "How would you know I snore if we weren't sleeping in the same room." She slanted a look at Jo, poking her in the shoulder. "Brat."

"Duh. " Jo closed the laptop and put it on the nightstand. "I'll just tell her I'm bi-curious and you've quite helpfully decided to show me the ropes."

"Ooh," Nora breathed, grinning at her. "_Rope_."

"Lech. " Jo laughed, giving her a shove and fighting back when Nora returned the favor. They ended up a tangle of limbs, nearly hanging off the bed and fighting for their breath. "You are five years old, Nora, I swear to God."

"Oh yeah?" Nora reversed them, pulling Jo back onto the bed with her. "What's that make you? My babysitter? Or just an opportunistic cradle robber?"

"A little of both," Jo smirked. "It's the close quarters, I've got Stockholm Syndrome." She shifted, pushing a pen aside with her hip, away from where it dug into her skin. "All that driving with you? No way I stood a chance."

"Plus, I let you shoot things," Nora said. "That's always a bonus."

"You listen to me," Jo said quietly, swallowing nervously. "You're the first person who ever looked at me and thought I could do this." She inhaled. "I really never did stand a chance."

Nora's hands loosened their grip on her wrists and Jo shivered again when those familiar fingers slid down the skin of her forearms, tracing a pattern that left gooseflesh in its wake. "You can do this," Nora said, her voice serious. "You shouldn't have to."

"None of us should. " Jo shrugged. "My Dad should be here, Sam and Dean's parents should be here. A lot of things should and shouldn't, doesn't mean anything."

"Bullshit," Nora said and kissed her.

Jo froze for a second, not quite believing this was really happening, then her body reacted and she responded. She shifted, sliding her hands up around Nora's body to tug her closer and angling her head into the kiss. There was nothing hesitant about it, Nora charged into the kiss the way she did life and Jo reacted in kind. Lips slid over lips, tongue met with tongue, and Jo thrilled when Nora made a greedy noise and rubbed her hips against Jo's.

Pulling up a leg, she let Nora fall into the cradle created by her body and moved her hands from Nora's back to grab fistfuls of dark curls. Nora rewarded her with another of those noises, working a hand between them to slide up Jo's shirt.

The feeling of Nora's hand rubbing over her breast, hot against her skin, even through her bra, made Jo squirm; Nora's soft, wicked laugh made her wet. She gasped for a breath when Nora did, and cried out when Nora's lips shifted to her neck to suck at the sensitive skin there.

Jo bit her lip, curling in on Nora as those talented fingers worked beneath her bra to stroke the heated flesh in tandem with the lips on her neck. The sound of her own ragged breathing blocked out the sound of anything else and she let it, her focus narrowing down to the heat of Nora's mouth and hand. This was not supposed to be happening, it wasn't, and part of her couldn't help wondering if it was some demon's sick joke. She was supposed to nurse a secret, long-suffering crush on the woman that would be the very definition of unrequited love for years. The idea of Nora actually _ returning_ her feelings had never really entered Jo's thoughts.

Except, now, maybe she could think about reconsidering that.

She let out a strangled protest when Nora suddenly pulled away to grumble, "You are wearing too much damn clothing." Impatient fingers tugged at the tank top she was wearing, fumbling with it. The image of Nora Scott battling a flimsy tank top wouldn't leave her anytime soon but, mercifully, her body didn't betray her by giggling.

Instead, Jo tugged it over her head for her, throwing it aside. "And you aren't?"

Nora glanced down reflexively and grinned, it was almost rueful. "Should've caught me in the towel," she said, leaning over Jo and kissing her quickly, lips making little more than a teasing pass over hers.

"Now you tell me," Jo grumbled, grabbing for Nora's shirt and pulling at it. "Off." Nora obliged, throwing the shirt in the same direction as Jo's, but didn't give her a chance to appreciate the view. Pushing Jo flat on the bed, she shimmied down to press a kiss to the skin between her breasts, just above the bow on her bra.

The action was slow, deliberate, and tender. Jo stared at her for a moment then reached out to push Nora's messy curls away from her face. "What is it?" she asked.

Nora didn't answer, just pushed the bra down out of the way and covered the nipple with her mouth. Jo yelped and arched into it, hoping Dean had suffered a sudden attack of deafness. Again she curled her hands in Nora's hair, holding on for her very life as those talented lips played with her, brushing her skin with the secrets Nora was whispering to her body.

Something was definitely going on but Jo knew Nora well enough to know when she was in the mood to share something and when she wasn't. Jo didn't stand a chance in hell of getting whatever was bothering Nora out of her right now, and she knew it. She decided instead, to let herself be caught up by the hands and lips toying with her body. Not that she was given much choice, Nora was tugging the bra free of her arms and giving her jeans an ominous look.

Jo couldn't stop the laugh when Nora cursed impatiently, jerking at the zipper that had gotten snagged. "Here," she said, reaching between them to help. "Let me do this."

Nora scowled then nodded, smiling sheepishly. "Yeah, you do that." Shifting onto her side, Nora gave Jo the room she needed to kick free of her jeans but slid a proprietary hand along her back as she did so. Jo groaned softly, lowering her head and just sitting quiet for a moment before rolling to face Nora.

"Better?" She asked with a little grin, watching Nora watch her.

"Much," Nora said and Jo hissed when one finger slid across the waistband of her panties. "Much, much better."

Jo dug her heels into the bed as Nora's finger traced concentric circles, tensing in anticipation of the moment that exploring finger hit the right spot. Her hips moved, trying to coax Nora to move faster, but she still wasn't prepared for it when Nora's hand nudged her underwear aside. Crying out, she clutched at the bed sheets and held on as Nora's fingers slipped around and over her clit.

Those fingers were merciless and Jo came apart, shaking and moaning when Nora moved them away from her clit, down to thrust in and out of her. She rode the feelings out in snatches of imagery. Nora's eyes watching her full of dark and want. Nora's body lying beside hers, the cascade of her hair spilling down over one shoulder in waves of sweet-smelling curls.

"God," she muttered when it passed, leaving her limp, wrung out, and happily lazy.

Nora laughed, leaning over to kiss her slowly. "Thanks, I think."

Grinning, Jo rolled closer and pushed a hand over the bare skin of Nora's side, moving it up in search of the bra clasp. "Welcome." With a quick jerk, she started working it free of Nora's body. "Now, about me returning the favor?"

*

Sam didn't know what woke him.

He lay quiet for a moment, straining through the dark to hear what was wrong, what it was that had disturbed him. The room was peaceful, the only other sound that he could hear was the soft, even breathing of his brother. Dean was still asleep. Whatever had woken Sam hadn't disturbed him. Huh. Dean wasn't the lightest sleeper in the world, but something worth waking him always did.

Rolling onto his side, facing the window, Sam closed his eyes again and wrote it off as a dream or raccoon or something. Nothing worth his time or his worry. He tugged the bedclothes closer and settled back, which, of course, was a mistake.

As soon as he did, he heard it again and it was definitely no raccoon. Slipping out of bed, he crossed the room and looked out to see Nora closing the trunk of her car. She glanced back and he let the curtain fall into place, waiting a beat before risking another look. She was dressed for hunting. He could see the hint of a knife glinting in the streetlight but it was the machete strapped across her back that the told the tale.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked, standing in the doorway.

Nora jumped. She hadn't heard him coming and that wasn't a good sign for her. "Out."

"In the middle of the night?" He nodded at the weaponry. "Loaded for bear?" Closing the door behind him, Sam stepped out into the night, ignoring the chilly air against his arms. "You know, don't you?" He asked. "You know who's behind this and you know where to find them." Nora didn't answer and he reached out to grab her. "_Nora_!"

"Yes!" She snapped, yanking at his grip but Sam held firm. "Yes, all right, I know who it is and I know where she is. Let me go, Sam, I have to do this."

"No, no you don't," Sam said. "This is crazy. Nora, you know better than this. Going off half-cocked, chasing after her with no plan? You'll get yourself killed!"

"It ends now, Sam," Nora insisted. "No more. I checked, I know _all_ of them, Sam. She killed people that had any kind of connection to me. She'll kill _everyone_ connected to me if she can, all of them, you and Dean included, and she won't touch me. I know Julia, we have history, she wants me to suffer - to live with this."

Her voice cracked at the end of the speech and, reflexively, Sam released her. "This isn't the way to stop her, Nora."

"It's the only one I can afford," she replied. "Sam, I go in there with backup, she'll be expecting it. None of you will make it out of there alive." She shook her head, backing away from him. "I can't, Sam. I can't live with that kind of responsibility, not me. I -- She knows that. What happened to her is my fault. She knows I'll see this the same way." Nora stopped, closing her eyes and drawing in a deep breath that seemed to steady her. "I have to do it this way, Sam. Even if it gets me killed, it'll still be over. She won't be targeting people I care about."

No," Sam said. "She'll just go after everybody else."

"Then so be it. " Nora smiled, shaky. "As awful as it sounds, I can live with that."

"No. " Sam shook his head. "You can't, that's the point. Don't do this, Nora, don't be stupid."

She closed her eyes. "I don't have a choice."

*  
The bed was empty when Jo opened her eyes, looking for Nora. Frowning, she reached out to press a hand to the mattress beside her and found it cold to the touch.

"Nora?" Sitting up, she pushed her hair back from her face and looked around the room. Almost everything was where it was supposed to be.

Almost.

Getting out of bed, Jo grabbed a t-shirt off a chair and pulled it over her head as she hurried to the mirror where a note waited. "Son of a bitch," she growled, snatching it off the glass. "I'm gonna _kill_ her!"

 

*

 

The sound of a fist pounding against the door had Dean jumping out of bed. "I'm up! I'm up!" He muttered around a yawn. "S'breakfast ready yet?"

"Open up guys!" Jo hollered and he frowned.

"Not breakfast then."

"No," Sam said, heading for the bathroom. "You wanna get that?"

"What?" Dean said fuzzily. "I thought you'n Jo were bosom buds or something. Why don't you get the door?"

"Because _you_ are. " Sam closed the bathroom door behind him.

Dean shrugged, scratching his stomach as he headed in the other direction. "Okay man, whatever rubs your Buddha," he called back, opening the motel door. "Somethin' wrong, Jo?"

"No, Dean, nothing's wrong. I'm just standing at your fucking door at three-thirty in the morning because I thought it'd be a great way to kick off a new day." Rolling her eyes, Jo shouldered past him. "Of _course_ something is wrong you idiot. Where's Sam?"

"Bathroom. Where's Nora?"

"How the fuck should I know?!" Jo snapped. "That's what I came to ask you two."

"She's gone?" Dean looked at the bathroom door with new eyes. "Oh, son of a -- " He groaned. "SAM!!!!"

"What?" Jo pushed a hand through her hair, looking from Dean to the bathroom. "Does he know something?"

The door opened and Sam stepped out, throwing a towel back in behind him. "What?"

"Where's Nora?" Dean asked, yawning again.

"Nora's gone?" Sam echoed. "Where?"

"Funny," Dean said. "I was just gonna ask you that very question." Grabbing a chair, he sat down and looked up at his brother. "Care to share exactly where she went, or you just in the mood to play Twenty Questions until we hit on the right one?"

"She left a note, Sam," Jo added. "Apologizing. She's gone after Julia, I _know_ it, and she's in no shape to be doing it alone. She's going to die, Sam, if we don't go after her? She's going to _die_ Now where the hell did she go?"

Sam sighed heavily. "She didn't tell me that."

"Great!" Jo threw up her hands and sat on the edge of the bed, folding her arms tight against her chest

"She didn't say anything, even hint at where she was going?" Dean prompted, keeping his eyes on his brother and watching Sam hunch his shoulders and look down. "Not even a mention?"

"No. " Sam frowned. "She just told me why and -- " He shook his head. "What was I supposed to do? Tackle her?"

"It'd be a start," Jo muttered. "Then I'd have a chance to kill her before Julia does."

"Not if I get her first," Dean said, getting up from the chair. "She found out where Julia was somehow, didn't just pull it out of thin air." He went for his jeans, hauling them on and not missing the fact that Jo didn't even so much as look his way.

At the moment, though, he had other plans. "Okay, so no psychic messages. She leave her laptop?" Jo nodded. "Cell phone?"

"I don't know. I didn't see it but..." Jo shrugged.

"Go check," Dean told Sam. Sam nodded, leaving quietly. "She say anything different before she left?" Grabbing a soda, he handed it to Jo as he passed. "Do anything different?"

Jo hesitated, thinking. "Yes," she affirmed. "She'd been struggling with everything, breaking, but then before we turned in -- " She lifted her hands. "Complete turn around. Upbeat, sarcastic, her usual self." Dean didn't comment but he saw the way her cheeks reddened as she explained. "Just, a complete 180."

She wasn't telling him everything, except she was. Dean had a pretty good idea of what she was leaving out. He'd be smug later. "Because she'd already decided what she was going to do," he said, sitting down again. "Okay, so what happened before that to change it?"

"Nothing," Jo looked helpless. "We were here, then she told me about Julia in the parking lot." She stopped, opening the drink. "She went back to the room to take a shower, she was in there a while, when she came out, she was different."

"So not an email," Dean mused. "Must've been her cell phone." He leaned his arms on the chair. "Which means it was either a text message or a phone call." He shook his head. "I'm gonna strangle her. What the hell was she thinking, running off like that?"

"Probably about protecting us, " Jo said. "You're not the only one with a martyr complex you know."

Dean looked at her. "_Martyr complex_?"

"Yes, martyr complex, " Jo insisted. "If this were Sam, you'd be doing the same damn thing she's doing and don't pretend otherwise."

He grinned. "Somebody's gotta keep that idiot alive."

"Exactly what she's probably thinking," Jo said, rolling her eyes. "So in this case? Sam and me? Not the idiots here."

"I'd be insulted," Dean told her. "But right now, I'm busy." He looked up when Sam came in, holding up the laptop. "No phone?"

"Nope, she must have it on her."

"Then here's hoping Nora left it turned on."

*

She had.

Jo waited silently for Sam to narrow down the signal's location, impatient even though she knew Nora had probably done it on purpose.

If only to find her body should she fail.

Not that it mattered, Jo was still going to kill her.

*  
"Double, double, toil and trouble…" Sam scowled and Dean fell silent with a grin. "Something wrong little brother?"

"Dean, a woman is _dead_." Sam's complaint made Dean's grin widen. "A lot of people _died_. Can you not do that?"

"A lot of people were killed by a vampire who thinks she's in the middle of an _Anita Blake_ novel and can suck the power of their soul out through their eyes." Dean nodded. "I didn't miss the part where she had to kill them when she does it." He shook his head. "The sheer crazy of this one makes it damned difficult to ignore, Sammy." He shoved another gun into the bag. "And that's without adding Nora and her one woman crusade into it."

He turned toward the door to see Jo shoving a bag of her own into the Impala. "Forget it. " He waved her off, leaving Sam standing in the room. "You are _not_ coming with us."

"Oh yes I am," Jo insisted, grabbing a 9mm out of the bag. "It's Nora. I've got more right to be going than you do."

"You're too close to this, Jo," Sam said, his tone more reasonable. "She doesn't need you getting caught up in the middle of a fight and getting yourself killed. Nora'd never forgive herself if you died trying to save her, that's why she did this."

"No, she did this because she's Nora and this is Julia." Jo rolled her eyes. "They make Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger look like Bruce and Demi." She shoved the gun toward Dean. "Check out the clip."

He frowned at her but did as she instructed. "What's with the ammo?"

"Ultraviolet rounds, " Jo explained. "Nora and Ash cooked it up. I've seen her use it, it works."

"Against vampires?" Dean pushed the clip back in, returning the gun. "Those two've been watching a little too much _Underworld_."

"And you haven't been watching enough, " Jo shot back. "There's enough rounds for you guys. If Julia's got as many followers with her as Nora thought she did? You're going to need every damn one." She opened the door of the Impala and slid into the backseat. "Especially with the way you shoot, Dean."

"She is _not_ coming with us," Dean insisted, looking back at Sam. "She'll get herself killed. She'll get _us_ killed."

"And if we leave her here alone," said Sam, "And Nora's still alive when we get there? She'll kill us anyway."

Jo stuck her head out the window and glared at them both. "You two take any longer, Nora won't have to. I'll do it for her. Come on already!"

*

"I always knew you'd come back," Julia purred, looking up as Nora walked into the room. "I just never pictured it quite like this." She stretched, draping herself across the bed. "I take it you saw my little gift?"

"If you can call it that," Nora said, gritting her teeth. She always did when she was frustrated. "She was a friend, Julia."

"So was I, once," Julia said with a pout. "Then you tried to kill me."

"Can't kill something that's already dead," Nora returned. "I just tried to put your corpse where it belonged." She paced around the room, a tiger caught in a cage, eyes searching for a way out. "You're not Julia anymore. You're not even _human_ anymore."

"No," Julia agreed, standing. "I'm more than that now." She stretched languidly. "You don't have any idea of the power you're denying yourself, Nora. Even without the rituals, the sheer _freedom_ of being what I've become..." She smiled and stepped closer. "The life that I can offer you -- "

"Isn't any kind of life at all."

"You can still hunt, you know," Julia continued, trailing her fingers along the ornate carving of her desk. She liked it here. The house was old, reeked of power and influence, and she _belonged_. Nora belonged here too, she could feel it in the air, whispers sliding to her on the wind. "You'd be unstoppable. Nothing to hold you back, no one to hold you back."

"Nobody but myself, " Nora insisted. "You know me, Jules, you know I could never live like that."

"Oh yes, you could," Julia soothed, abandoning the desk to slide past and around Nora. "You would be surprised, Nora, at just how much you could enjoy living like this." She smiled, settling her hands on Nora's shoulders, stroking. "It isn't so different from the life you live now, just so many more resources."

Nora didn't move as Julia pressed against her body, almost didn't breathe when Julia's cold fingers soothed themselves along her neck.

"I never wanted to leave you," Julia added in a whisper. "This way, I would never have to."

They were alone. The others already dispatched to guard against the inevitable rescuers that Nora's new plaything would be leading. Julia knew the girl wouldn't be able to resist the role of crusading heroine. It was just the sort of pitiful cliché her kind favored. "It's such a pity that we won't get more time alone," she said, slipping closer and nuzzling Nora's throat. "I know, you can't always get what you want but, oh well, this will have to be good enough."

Grabbing Nora's chin swiftly, she laughed at the look of surprise, and possible fear, that came over Nora's face with the realization she couldn't move.

"You see," Julia said happily, "the rituals worked. Surprise!" she announced.

Pity that Nora couldn't scream when Julia bit, it would have been just _perfect_.

*

When the dilapidated mansion came into view, Sam knew the crack was coming and Dean didn't disappoint.

"Oh now, that is typical," he said, waving a hand at the crumbling brick building. "Elvira's got a taste for the Addams Family. Y'know, Sam, would it kill one of these guys to pick something a little more like the Ritz and a little less American Gothic."

Sam grinned. "I'll pass that along to the next demon we exorcise, he can spread the word."

Dean parked the car out of sight and the three of them crowded around the trunk to pick up their weapons before taking a roundabout route to approach the house.

"Looks deserted," Sam said as they stopped just inside the tree line. He shared a look with Dean. "They know we're here."

"Yep. " Dean nodded. "Which should just make for a ton of fun."

"How many vampires you think she could have in there?" Sam asked as Jo stepped up beside him.

"No idea. " She sighed. "When we wiped her out last time, she had about a half a dozen. Depends on how much time she's spent rebuilding her happy little band of undead between murders."

"Well, if our girl had to start from scratch and decided to go on a killing spree all at once?" Dean shrugged. "We might get lucky. If she's picky about her underlings, she might not have a lot."

Sam looked at him. "_Lucky_?" He grinned. "Dean, when have we _ever_ been that?"

"Well, now, Sammy, that depends on your definition of lucky. " Dean smirked.

Jo groaned, shaking her head. "We're doomed."

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "Pretty much."

*

Killing vampires is a damn messy business and by the third one Dean had dispatched, he was feeling more than a little irritated. "Nora had better damn well appreciate this," he sniped to Sam as he pushed the headless corpse of yet another vampire off him. "I hate vampires."

"Last year you didn't even know they existed," Sam pointed out, irritatingly logical about it.

"Still hate 'em," Dean said, scowling at the blood on his clothes. "Don't these guys watch Buffy? They're supposed to explode into nice, neat little piles of dust."

"They're vampires, Dean."

"And?" Dean started down the hallway again. "Vampires can't watch television? Come on, you know those guys watch those shows. That arrogant? They _have_ to be. Can't make fun of the mistakes if you're not watching the shows."

Sam rolled his eyes. "They're _vampires_, Dean. I'm pretty sure watching _Blood Ties_ isn't exactly high on their list of priorities."

"Should be. " Dean grinned. "Christina Cox? Damn." He whistled.

"Dean. " Sam shot a look at Jo and she rolled her eyes. "Can you, maybe, drool later? We're supposed to be rescuing Nora, not -- "

"Lusting after a really hot Canadian?" Dean shrugged. "Whatever, man." He held up a hand. "Y'know, we really should head up there sometime. See what they've got going on."

Sam shook his head and fell into step with Jo, heading down the hallway. "We are not going hunting in Canada just so you can chase hot Canadian girls, Dean," he told his brother over his shoulder. "We are _not_."

"Fine," Dean said. "Ruin my fun. You know how long it's been since we took a vacation?"

"Sam, would you really mind if I shot him?" Jo asked in a whisper as they stopped outside a door.

"Not really. " Sam grinned. "At this point? I'm tempted to shoot him myself."

"You two are hilarious," Dean told them. "Seriously hilarious."

Sam waved a hand at them both, silencing them with the gesture as he leaned around the corner for a quick glimpse. When he pulled back, he held up three fingers and his companions nodded. Dean immediately turned around. If there were three coming from the front --

Jo yelled and opened fire when three more dropped down from behind them. Dean grappled with one, grunting when she slammed him against a wall, knocking a bookcase over in the motion and scattering books to the floor Sam slipped on one as he threw a punch, skidding across the floor before he righted himself and swung back at the pursuing vampire.

Having lost his machete in the near-fall, Sam yelled out to Jo, knocking the vampire off balance just long enough for Jo to react.

The bullet struck the vampire on target, right in the heart, and he stumbled forward onto the floor. What happened next brought everyone to a halt.

"Son-of-a-bitch," Dean said softly, echoing Sam's thoughts as they stared at the vampire, watching the flesh around the bullet wound begin to eat away at itself.

"Told you," Jo said, grinning.

"Ash came up with that?" Sam wondered, retrieving his machete.

"Uh huh. Ash came up with it, Nora tested it." Jo tossed her gun to him, retrieving the spare from her jacket. "That's why it's hard to believe Julia survived. I _know_ Nora shot her." Another vampire fell, and then another, and Sam watched the same reaction again and again.

Seeing it in action for himself, he was having trouble believing it as well.

"Guess whatever she's been doing to people. " Dean bounced a vampire's face off the wall. "She's been doing it a while, and I'm gonna take a guess here and say that it probably works." He grinned. "Which, I'm gonna have to say, is very bad."

"You think?" Jo said dryly. "How could an invulnerable vampire _possibly_ be a bad thing?"

"Precisely what I've been wondering."

Sam looked up at the unfamiliar voice to see a gorgeous blonde grinning down from the stairs at them, an unconscious Nora slumped over in her arms. "Julia?" he murmured, glancing over at an ashen-faced Jo.

She nodded once, almost imperceptibly. "Julia."

"Yes," Julia said brightly. "I am. And you are Jo. Nora's said absolutely nothing about you but that's no surprise. Nora hasn't said much of anything today." The vampire looked at the woman in her arms and laughed. "Well, I shouldn't be surprised, she never was much of a conversationalist. Not that she needed to be, of course."

Sam hid a wave of revulsion at the way Julia's eyes slid over Jo's form and he gripped the gun tighter, reminding himself that if he shot now, it would be too easy to hit Nora. Not for the first time, he wished he had stopped her when he had the chance. Not that it mattered at the moment.

"Which you would know, it seems. " Julia sniffed delicately. "I can smell you on her." Her expression became one of disgust. "Her standards are slipping, it seems."

"Y'know, as much as I hate to argue with a woman," Dean spoke up. "Gonna have to this time. I'd say, all things considered, Nora's taste's improved considerably."

Sam and Jo both looked at him in surprise.

"Was that actually a compliment?" Jo wondered, looking at Sam.

"Think so," he said.

"Sam?" She stepped away from Dean. "I'm scared now."

"You're not the only one," Sam assured.

"I'm sure you two think you're hilarious," Dean said. "But can we worry about the crazy vampire lady and why Nora isn't trying to kill her?"

"She had her chance," Julia cut in. "She failed." She smiled brightly. "I won't."

A "NO!" tore its way clear of Jo's throat as Julia released her grip on Nora and the unconscious woman tumbled down the stairs, landing in a heap at their feet.

"Oh dear," Julia said with a manic giggle. "I think I broke her," she announced, without concern. "Just as well, she didn't like my idea at all." She pouted. "Eternity together would have been _fun_ but, oh well, there's always more fish in the sea, you know." She giggled again, turning away. Nora apparently forgotten already.

_So much for the idea of vampires mating for life,_ Sam thought as he and Jo scrambled for Nora, both of them frantically trying to find a pulse.

"Bitch." Dean said behind them. "Goddamn, fucking _bitch_."

The sound of movement made Sam look up in time to see his brother rush the stairs, chasing after the quickly retreating vampire. "Dean, NO!" He yelled.

"Take care of her!" Dean didn't look back as he rounded a corner, out of their sight. "I'll be right back!"

Sam was torn, looking from the direction his brother had gone in, to Nora's apparently lifeless body before him.

"Go, Sam," Jo said suddenly, voice resigned. "I'll stay here with her." He looked back at her and she held up the gun. "I've got it covered. We'll be right here when you get back."

"Jo -- "

"She's _alive_, Sam," Jo cut him off. "Make sure Dean stays that way too." She pulled out her cell phone. "And hurry up, we're going to need time to make up a good story before the paramedics get here. Plus, y'know, make sure they don't get eaten on the way in."

Sam half-grinned. "Point taken." He picked up his machete and gun. "Be right back."

*

Nora moaning was the most wonderful sound Jo had ever heard. Add in the sight of her eyelids flickering and it was better than Christmas, the Fourth of July, and her birthday all rolled up in one. "Don't try to move," she said, putting down the cell phone to run a hand over Nora's hair. "It's just me."

"Jo?" Nora managed thickly. "Whe—Jules?"

"She's gone, " Jo answered. "Sam and Dean went after her." She swallowed, seeing the wound on Nora's neck. "Nora, did Julia make you drink? I know she bit you but, did she make you drink?"

"Wha--?" Nora blinked slowly. "No. She – No, " she said. "I'm too -- " She managed a weak smile. "Spend forever with me? That's Hell on Earth."

"Not to me it isn't," Jo said, smiling back. "Purgatory, maybe, but not Hell." Her smile faltered. "You're an idiot you know."

"Yeah. " Nora's smile widened. "Why?"

"You went after her alone. What the fuck did you think she was going to do? Lie down and let you chop off her head?" Jo didn't hide the fear in her voice, didn't even try. "I woke up, you were gone, and I _knew_ what you'd gone to do." She pushed back the tears. "You ever pull anything like that with me again, and I'll kill you myself."

Nora lifted a limp hand to parody a salute. "Aye, aye, ma'am."

Jo didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or shake with relief and somehow she ended up doing all three as she bent over to press her lips to Nora's. Nora managed to catch hold of her hair, holding her there longer than she'd intended and Jo didn't fight her. Mostly because she didn't want to take even a slight risk of hurting her but, partly because she really didn't want to move. When she finally did, she pressed a kiss to Nora's forehead and sat back.

She looked up the stairs again then down the hallway in both directions. "Don't suppose you know how many 'kids' Julia's got lurking around here."

"A few," Nora said, her voice fainter than before. "Word's out, what she's been doing." She coughed. "They all want a shot at it."

"Of course they do," Jo agreed. "No sane vampire's going to turn down a shot at invincibility." She shivered with the thought. "If Julia survives -- "

"She won't," Nora managed. "Not with the boys -- they'll take care of it."

"Careful," Jo said, "Dean hears you say that and there'll be no end to his gloating." She smiled when Nora tried to laugh. "You know I'm right, Nora. He's already full of himself. He finds out you don't actually think he's the biggest moron on two legs? There'll be no stopping his attitude."

"Yes -- yes, there will, " Nora promised.

"You?"

"Sam." Nora grinned. "Little brothers are great at that." Her eyelids drooped and Jo sat up straighter, watching her closely.

"Nora?" she prompted, fear entering her voice again. "Are you okay?"

"Tired," Nora said. "Blood loss. I'm just -- I need to sleep."

"You can't!" Jo protested, leaning over her again. "You cannot go to sleep, Nora, you hear me? You go to sleep there's a damn good chance you might not wake up and you are _not_ going to leave me, okay? You are not! Not after we finally figured this out."

"Not gonna leave you. " Nora smiled. "Just sleep. Doctors will pump me up with blood and I'll be goo—" She was drifting and there wasn't a damn thing Jo could do to stop it. Between the blood loss and the fall, Nora could have been suffering any number of complications and there was no way –

Jo glared at the phone and then up at the stairs. "Hurry up," she demanded, unsure of who she was really talking to.

"I'll be fine, Jo," Nora said. "Promise I will be."

"I'm going to hold you to that," Jo whispered, watching Nora's eyes droop shut again. She forced herself to reach out and feel for a pulse, finding it slow but _there_ and she kept her fingers on that spot, feeling each pulse, taking each one as a promise. "Please don't die on me, Nora," she said. "Please don't."

She closed her eyes, leaning over her lover and maybe she even prayed a little. _Hurry_.

*

Frustrated rage burned in Dean's gut as he chased the laughing vampire through the mansion, up stairs and through winding old hallways. All the way, the image of Nora tumbling down the stairs played over and over in his mind, there every time he closed his eyes. The sound of her hitting the floor echoed in his ears and twisted like a knife.

Following Julia into a stairwell, he looked up to see her looking down. She smiled too brightly, blew him a kiss and ducked out of sight.

"I am gonna kill that bitch," Dean said, not looking back as Sam stopped beside him. "How's Nora?"

"Alive," Sam said. "She was still unconscious, but alive. Jo's with her. Left her with a gun and her cell. By now the paramedics should be on the way."

Straight into a huge mess with all those nice desiccated and beheaded corpses lying around. Nice. "We're gonna need a good story."

"She's working on that, too."

"Sweet," Dean said. Jo was coming in handier than he'd expected.

"And you wanted to leave her behind," said Sam.

Dean heard the undisguised relief in his brother's voice and smiled, strained though it was. "Yes, I wanted to leave her behind. I was wrong, I admit it. I'll grovel at her feet later, okay?" He waited for Sam's smirk and nod before taking the stairs at a run, his brother easily keeping step with him. "Girl's not useless, " he added when they hit the next landing. Jo wasn't useless, not by a long shot, but his opinion of her hunting skills didn't matter much at the moment.

Burning off a clip of Ash's magic bullets into Julia's face? Now that mattered a whole hell of a lot.

"No," Julia agreed, suddenly behind them. "She isn't. But I don't think we're talking the same kind of use." She smiled prettily at them from where she lounged against a wall. "I got tired of waiting for you to catch-up." She feigned a pout. "A few years of this life and you forget just how _slow_ you all can be."

"Oh, don't worry, we're fast enough," Dean promised her.

"No," she laughed, shaking her head. "You really aren't."

This was his chance, Dean knew it, he wasn't going to get a second shot. And if he could have moved; he would have taken it.

He couldn't move. At all. She was doing something to them, she had to be. He couldn't even turn his head to check on Sam, could only just see him out of the corner of his eye.

"Dean," Sam spoke as Julia closed the distance between them.

"Yeah, I know," Dean answered, trying with everything he had to move. It seemed like the more he struggled, the less he could move.

Julia laughed, sliding against him. "Isn't it fun, boys?" She asked, tweaking Dean's nose and running approving hands over his torso. "It's one of the benefits of my little project," she explained. "The more blood I spill, the more lives I take into myself, well, the more I can do. Imagine what'll happen if I keep going?"

She pressed herself against Dean, draping her curves against him and leaning on his shoulder to tease her lips over his neck. He felt teeth scrape skin and tried to twist away, his muscles screaming with the useless effort. "Nora was surprised too, so don't feel so bad."

Julia pulled away, looking up at him with a little smile. "It was so much _fun_ to see that look on her face - the surprised shock. It's surprisingly difficult to shock her, but, I'm sure you'd understand. I see the same look on yours."

Dean watched as she slid a hand inside his shirt, raising gooseflesh when her cold, dead flesh rubbed over his skin. "Dean Winchester," she said. "Exactly as I pictured."

"I don't know if that's a compliment," Dean said, "or an insult."

She laughed, spinning away from him. "Neither." Leaning against the railing, she tossed her hair. "I've heard of you before now, you know. You two have quite the reputation, have people all fired up and talking."

"Really?" Dean smirked. "Wow, you hear that one, Sam? We're _famous_. So, Julia, does that mean we get our own clothing line and a reality series on MTV?"

"Actually, what you get depends on you, " Julia said. "I've been toying with just killing you and maybe turning you." She toyed with her hair, twisting a blonde curl around one finger and watching them with calculating eyes. "Either way, I win." Her expression hardened, the monster showing through. "I think maybe turning." She smiled coldly. "It's more fun that way, everything considered."

"And here it comes," Dean said, keeping his eyes on Julia as he concentrated on moving _something_, anything. All he needed was one shot. Once Julia was down, they could finish the job. He just needed that shot. "We've hit the point where she shares her super-secret diabolical plan to rule the world and make lots of little vampire babies. I love the diabolical plan, don't you, Sam?"

"Oh yeah," Sam agreed. "It's just awesome."

"So, did I get the diabolical plan right or can I guess again?" Dean asked, watching Julia closely. "I never get it on the first try."

Julia looked annoyed as she pushed away from the railing, circling around them both. "No," she said, striking out at Sam and knocking him to his knees. Dean grunted as invisible fingers turned him around with a jerk, making sure he could see what was about to happen. "Sorry, boys, but I really just don't have the time to listen." Curling a hand into Sam's hair, she yanked his head back to bare his throat.

When her fangs flashed, Dean yelled, and, inexplicably, Julia dropped into a crumpled heap on the floor.

It took a moment for his brain to acknowledge the sound of a gunshot and, in that moment, Jo walked past him and Sam both, standing over the dead vampire to calmly empty the clip into her.

His limbs slow to respond, Dean stumbled forward on protesting legs. He avoided hitting the floor by grabbing for his brother's shoulder, his hand connecting with Sam's shoulder. "You ok?" he asked, risking his unsteady balance to lean over and check Sam's neck.

"I'm fine," Sam said. "What about Jo?"

Dean looked up and saw her still watching Julia's body as it rapidly decomposed under the power of the ultraviolet bullets. "Jo?"

Jo didn't answer for a second and when she did, she didn't sound like herself. "Fine. The paramedics will be here in a minute, cops too. I told them we came in here looking for our friend and found bodies all over the place." She looked at Dean. "You and Sam better get out of here before they show up."

She smiled faintly at them. "Nora'll kill me if we have to waste good money on bail."

*

"You look like shit," Sam said.

"Thanks," Nora rasped, opening her eyes to take in the dingy hospital room. "Finest accommodations money could buy, huh?" She managed to avoid yelping in pain as he helped her sit up. An accomplishment since her whole body screamed out in pain every time she tried to move. "Did I or did I not get thrown down a flight of stairs?"

"A flight and a half actually." Sam grinned. "But who's counting?"

"My ribs." She winced. "And they want an exact count too. I think they were IRS agents in a former life." He laughed, the sound stilted, and Nora sighed. "Don't do that."

"Do what?" he asked, sitting on the edge of her hospital bed, careful to avoid the IV feeding saline into her veins.

"Book yourself a first class ticket on a nice little guilt trip." Nora settled back against the scratchy, over-starched pillow. "My going after Julia was _my_ decision, the right one."

"She nearly killed you," Sam pointed out. "If the fall wasn't enough, you lost a dangerous amount of blood."

Nora rolled her eyes. "She didn't want me dead, Sam. If Julia had wanted me dead -- "

He grinned. "You would be?"

"It's cliche, but yes. " She nodded. "Julia liked killing just a little too much to pass it up."

"Did you know she could do that thing with freezing people?"

"No," Nora said, telling him the truth. "I knew she was chasing something with those rituals, but I didn't think it would be that effective." She closed her eyes for a moment, suddenly tired again. "I always did underestimate her."

"Well, it's not like you were thinking clearly," Sam said. She could hear the grin in his voice and smiled back.

"No, it wasn't. Julia always had a knack for completely screwing me up." Nora sighed. "But, either way, I still did the right thing and even if I had known, I probably would have gone anyway." She opened her eyes to grin at the look on Sam's face. "Yes, I know, it's insane."

"Do you have a death wish or something?" Sam asked bluntly, making her grin. "What the hell were you thinking, Nora?"

"I was thinking I didn't have a whole lot of options and I wasn't about to let Jo or you two get yourselves killed trying to clean up my fucking mess!" Nora waved a hand at him, cursing when the IV in her arm protested the swift motion. Rubbing it carefully, she settled down again. "I didn't have much of a choice, Sam."

"Yeah, you did." Sam looked frustrated. "We still ended up having to come after you, so either way we were risking our lives. You _wanted_ to go after her alone, Nora. It wasn't about protecting us or keeping Jo safe, it was about your fucking pride."

Nora flinched. "You're probably right." It wouldn't be the first time her pride had fucked her over, it wouldn't be the last. "Sorry."

"Probably?"

His knowing look made her groan. "Do you have to be such a smug little bitch about it?!" she protested, wishing for something to throw at him. "I just admitted you were right."

"You said _probably_. " Sam grinned. "And yeah, I pretty much do. It's living with Dean, I've finally lost it."

"You're a Winchester, Sam," Nora muttered sleepily. "I'm not sure you ever _had_ it."

Sam chuckled and patted her knee. "Get some rest."

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him to fuck off, she wasn't five years old, but she fell asleep before she could.

*

He really didn't go to the hospital looking for a fight but, that said, Dean also wasn't surprised that he found one. It started the moment he walked into the room, with Nora opening her eyes to glare at him.

"Oh," she rasped, coughing. "You."

"Yeah, me, the guy who saved your ass," he said, shutting the door behind him after one last check of the hall. "And after everything I had to do get in here, least you could do is _pretend_ that you're happy to see me." He turned with a grin. "Besides, all the drugs they've got you on, you should be proposing marriage to everyone in sight."

She glared again, scratching at the bandage that protected her IV. "No drug is that good."

Dean tugged at the scrubs he was wearing and stepped closer. "You scared the hell out of Sam and Jo, you know that right?"

She closed her eyes, nodding. "I've already spoken to Sam. Jo seems to time visits to when I'm asleep." She looked chagrined and he didn't argue the point. Nora deserved to be blaming herself; he wasn't here to ease her conscience. "Is she all right?"

"Physically, she's fine, " he said grudgingly. "Can't say about the rest of her though. She stood over Julia and put every bullet she had into her _face_. "

Nora paled, no easy feat considering her already ghost-like pallor, and whispered, "Fuck."

"Well, yeah, that would be the problem here, wouldn't it?" he snapped. "You fucked her, didn't you?" He didn't wait for her to answer. "You had to do it, didn't you? One kick at the can before you rushed off to try and get yourself killed. Goddammit, Nora, you have any idea how fucking _stupid_ you were?!"

That got a reaction out of her and Dean ducked, dodging the Gideon bible flung his way. "Asshole," she snapped out. "I did the right thing! She should never have been there!"

"No? Rather we left her back at the hotel on her own, let Julia snatch her without even a fight?" Dean snorted. "Yeah, that would've gone over real well, sweetheart. Ellen would crucify the both of us when Jo turned up with fangs." He picked up the bible and put it on the bed. "She was _fine_ with us."

"Right up until she decided to burn off a clip into Julia's _face_!" Nora yelled.

"Which she wouldn't have done if you hadn't fucked her over." Dean glared. "Hope to hell it was the best sex of your life, Nora, you're going to be paying through the nose for it."

"Fuck you," Nora spat, all the angrier because she knew he was right. He could see it in her eyes.

"Anytime you want, sweetheart," he shot back. "God knows you could use it."

She glared at him and, for a second, he thought she might throw her bedpan at him and when she didn't, he was a little disappointed. It would've made a great moment. "I think you're probably confusing yourself with me," she said icily.

"Not a chance in hell," Dean insisted. "Never happen." He watched her scoff and roll her eyes at him. "I might be an asshole, Nora, but I'm not a stupid one."

"Maybe I was, but I didn't have a hell of a lot of choice either," she said.

"Like hell you didn't," he walked closer. "You had plenty of choices, you just decided you didn't like any of them! Could've called me and Sam but that would've meant getting over yourself and asking for some fucking help." He shook his head. "You've convinced yourself you're so much better than I am, you wouldn't make the same mistakes I do, you wouldn't treat Jo the way I do?" He laughed. "Fuck, Nora, compared to you, I'm the best friend she ever had. You talk good about treating Jo right, showing her the ropes, the whole nine yards but when it got down to it - you did the same damn thing I wanted to, you left her behind."

"I was protecting her, " Nora muttered, looking away.

"Sure you were," Dean said. "It was all for her own good." He shook his head. "Ever think maybe she doesn't _want_ protecting? 'Cause I could've sworn that's why she left home, she was sick and tired of Ellen's protection. Pretty safe bet, if she's not interested in Mommy keeping her safe, she's sure as hell not going to be interested in her girlfriend trying to do the same damn thing."

"No," Jo agreed from the doorway where she stood with Sam. "She's not."

"Don't think she's interested in you protecting her either, Dean," Sam said. "And maybe if you two shut up long enough, it might hit you that me and Jo? We're actually over what happened." He hesitated and Dean saw the shadow in his eyes. "Mostly, at least. We don't need you two snarling at each other over it."

"We're not snarling," Nora and Dean chorused then scowled at each other.

"Not at the moment. " Jo shrugged. "But you do and we're a little tired of listening to it."

"So grow the fuck up?" Dean supplied.

"Pretty much, yes," said Sam.

"And fast, " Jo put in. Dean figured that she considered the 'or else' to be implied; he sure as hell wasn't missing it. Not with the identical looks of aggravation on Sam and Jo's faces. He resisted the urge to chime 'yes Mom', he suspected they would probably kill him for it.

"Okay, deal," he said instead. "C'mon, Sam, let's head to the cafeteria. You can buy me a coffee and lecture me on the error of my ways."

They were halfway out the door when he heard Nora mutter, "I'm not sure they make enough coffee for that."

He let it go, which, he thought, was big of him and he'd tell her that first chance he got.

*

Jo waited for the door to close before she crossed the room and sat down by Nora's bed. "You shouldn't have left me," she said and kissed her. Nora's lips beneath hers were dry, chapped, and so very alive. She pressed closer, ignoring the setting, and ran a hand down Nora's arm until she touched the IV and reality intruded. "Okay?" she said, pulling back. "You shouldn't. We could have planned something, it would have _worked_." She frowned at Nora. "I could handle it.

Nora tentatively slipped her hand into Jo's, twining their fingers together. The hesitance was as surprising as the somber look on her face. "I know," she said. "I thought it would be better this way. That, maybe, my head would be clearer if you weren't with me -- "

"Bullshit, " Jo shot back to cover her uncertainty. "You needed the backup, if you wouldn't take me with you, you could have taken Dean or Sam. You weren't worried about me, you wanted to kill the bitch yourself." She pulled her hand away. "The only thing I'm not sure of is whether it was guilt because you didn't do it before -- or if you just couldn't handle the idea of someone else doing it."

"Maybe both," Nora admitted. "I don't know what to tell you about it, Jo, I really don't have a fucking clue." She laughed. "Which, I think, is the point that Dean was trying to make. I got so caught up in the chase, in _us_, that everything just blurred together into a huge mess that -- " She sighed. "I fucked up and if you hadn't brought Dean and Sam with you... I'd probably be dead."

"Probably?" Jo asked. "I saw you, Nora. I saw how you looked before she threw you down the stairs. Forget probably, try _definitely_." Her voice shook and she found herself being pulled in by Nora for another kiss. This time, she was the one that got caught up in it, drawn out of her own thoughts by Nora's persistent lips and tongue.

When she came up for air, she looked at Nora for a long moment, "If you ever do that again," she warned. "Forget the others, I'll kill you myself. Are we clear?"

Nora smiled, a flash of her old self grinning out of her eyes. "Not even close to clear," she said. "But it's a start."

*

Pushing a cup of coffee back and forth between his hands, Sam watched his brother. "So, you feel better now?" he asked, avoiding the sugar packet that Dean tossed his way. "Your annual fight with Nora out of the way?"

Dean swallowed a mouthful of coffee and grinned at him. "Not a chance. That's a fight that's never really over. It's more fun to leave it this way." He shrugged. "Besides, she always tells me the truth. No sugar-coating. In this business, you need somebody to call you on your bullshit. Somebody that's not family."

"What, I sugar-coat things?"

"No," Dean added, chewing a stir stick. "But, sometimes, I need to hear it from someone outside." He gave Sam a knowing look. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah," Sam said. "I know." He didn't say it, but Dean knew. He knew about the conversation with Nora. "So, uh, we going to stick around for a few days? Just in case they need the help?"

"Sounds good to me." Dean nodded, a hint of mischief in his eyes.

Sam groaned. "Don't, Dean, " he warned. "You are _not_ going to get into it with Nora."

"Sure I am," said Dean. "But I promise, I'll wait for her to get out of here first."

"You're a saint," Sam said, shaking his head.

"I try." Dean crumpled the coffee cup. "Let's go."


End file.
